#. 


IMAGE  EVALUATION 
TEST  TARGET  (MT-3) 


C  ^°  ^f^ 


1.0 


I.I 


us 


■"IS 

2.0 


lAO 


1.25  III  1.4 


III 


1.6 


Photographic 

Sciences 

Corporalion 


23  WEST  MAIN  STREET 

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CIHM/ICMH 

Microfiche 

Series. 


CIHM/ICMH 
Collection  de 
microfiches. 


Canadian  Institute  for  Historical  Microreproductions  /  Institut  Canadian  de  microreproductions  historiques 


Technical  and  Bibliographic  Notas/Notaa  tachniquas  at  bibliographiquaa 


Tha  Instituta  haa  anamptad  to  obtain  tha  baat 
original  copy  available  for  filming.  Faaturaa  of  thia 
copy  which  may  ba  bibliographically  unique, 
which  may  altar  any  of  tha  imagea  in  tha 
reproduction,  or  which  may  significantly  change 
the  uaual  method  of  filming,  are  checked  below. 


□   Coloured  covera/ 
Couverture  de  couleur 


I — I   Covers  damaged/ 


D 


D 


D 
D 


n 


D 


Couverture  endommagie 


Covers  restored  and/or  laminated/ 
Couverture  reataurie  et/ou  pelilculAe 


Cover  title  miaaing/ 


I      I    La  titra  de  couverture  manque 
I — I   Coloured  mapa/ 


Cartes  gtegraphiquaa  en  couleur 


Coloured  ink  (i.e.  other  than  blue  or  black)/ 
Encre  de  couleur  (i.e.  autre  que  bleue  ou  noire) 


I     I   Coloured  plataa  and/or  iiluatrationa/ 


Planchea  et/ou  iiluatrationa  en  couleur 


Bound  with  other  material/ 
Reli*  avec  d'autres  documents 


Tight  binding  may  cause  shadows  or  distortion 
along  interior  margin/ 

Lareliure  serrAe  peut  causer  de  I'ombre  ou  de  la 
diatorsion  le  long  de  la  marge  intirieure 

Blank  laavea  added  during  reatoration  may 
appear  within  the  text.  Whenever  possible,  these 
have  been  omitted  from  filming/ 
II  se  peut  que  certainaa  pagea  blanchaa  ajoutiea 
lors  d'une  reatauration  apparaiaaent  dana  le  taxte. 
mala,  lorsque  cela  itait  poaaible,  cea  pagea  n'ont 
pea  «ti  filmiaa. 

Additional  commenta:/ 
Commantairea  supplAmantairaa; 


L'Institut  a  microfilm*  la  maiileur  axemplaire 
qu'il  lui  a  iti  possible  de  se  procurer.  Las  details 
de  cet  exempleire  cigi  sont  peut-Atre  uniques  du 
point  de  vue  bibiiographique.  qui  peuvent  modifier 
une  imege  reproduite.  ou  qui  peuvent  exiger  une 
modification  dana  la  mAthoda  normaie  de  fllmage 
sont  indiquAs  ci-dessous. 


r~|   Coloured  pagea/ 


Pagee  de  couleur 

Pagea  damaged/ 
Pagea  andommagiea 

Pagea  reatorad  and/oi 

Pagea  reataurMa  et/ou  pellicuiies 


r~1   Pagea  damaged/ 

rn   Pagea  reatorad  and/or  laminated/ 


r~l^Pagee  discoloured,  stained  or  foxed/ 
L^    Pages  dicoiories.  tachetAes  ou  piquiea 

□   Pagea  detached/ 
Pagea  d^tach^as 

r~T/Showthrough/ 
b^   Tranaparence 

□   duality  of  print  varies/ 
Qualiti  inigaia  de  ('impression 

□   Includes  supplementary  material/ 
Comprend  du  material  suppMmentaire 

□   Only  edition  available/ 
Seule  idition  disponible 


Th 
to 


Th 
po 
of 
fill 


Or 
be 
th 
si( 
ot 
fir 
si< 
or 


D 


Pagee  wholly  or  pertiaiiy  obscured  by  errata 
slips,  tissuaa.  etc..  have  been  refilmed  to 
enaure  the  beat  possible  imege/ 
Lee  pagee  totalement  ou  pertieilement 
obscurcies  per  un  feuillet  d'errata.  une  peiure, 
etc.,  ont  itt  filmies  k  nouveau  de  fap on  A 
obtenir  la  meilleure  image  poaaible. 


sh 
Tl 
w 

M 
di 

rij 
re 
mi 


This  item  is  filmed  at  the  reduction  ratio  checked  below/ 

Ce  document  eat  film*  au  taux  de  rMuction  indiqui  ci-deaaoua. 


10X 

14X 

18X 

22X 

26X 

30X 

y 

12X 


16X 


20X 


24X 


28X 


32X 


rails 
du 

idifier 
une 
nage 


The  copy  filmed  here  ha*  been  reproduced  thanke 
to  the  generosity  of:  ; 

IMetropolitan  Toronto  Library 
Canadian  History  Department 

The  images  appearing  here  are  the  best  quality 
possible  considering  the  condition  and  legibility 
of  the  original  copy  and  in  keeping  with  the 
filming  contract  specifications. 


Original  copies  in  printed  paper  covers  are  filmed 
beginning  with  the  front  cover  and  ending  on 
the  last  page  with  a  printed  or  illustrated  impres- 
sion, or  the  back  cover  when  appropriate.  All 
other  original  copies  are  filmed  beginning  on  the 
first  page  with  a  printed  or  illustrated  impres- 
sion, and  ending  on  the  last  page  with  a  printed 
or  illustrated  impression. 


The  last  recorded  frame  on  each  microfiche 
shall  contain  the  symbol  -^  (meaning  "CON- 
TINUED"), or  the  symbol  ^  (meaning  "END"), 
whichever  applies. 

Maps,  plates,  charts,  etc.,  may  be  filmed  at 
different  reduction  ratios.  Those  too  large  to  be 
entirely  included  in  one  exposure  are  filmed 
beginning  in  the  upper  left  hand  corner,  left  to 
right  and  top  to  bottom,  as  many  frames  as 
required.  The  following  diagrams  illustrate  the 
method: 


L'exemplaire  film*  f ut  reproduit  grAce  I  la 
gAntrosit*  de: 

Metropolitan  Toronto  Library 
Canadian  History  Department 

Les  images  suivantes  ont  6tA  reproduites  avec  ie 
plus  grand  soin,  compte  tenu  de  la  condition  et 
de  la  nettet*  de  l'exemplaire  film*,  et  en 
conformity  avec  les  conditions  du  contrat  de 
filmage. 

Les  exemplaires  originaux  dont  la  couverture  en 
papier  est  ImprimAe  sont  fiimts  en  commenqant 
par  Ie  premier  plat  et  en  terminant  soit  par  la 
dernlAre  pege  qui  comporte  une  empreinte 
d'impression  ou  d'illustration,  soit  par  Ie  second 
plat,  selon  Ie  cas.  Tous  les  autres  exemplaires 
originsux  sont  fllmte  en  commen9Bnt  par  la 
premiere  page  qui  comporte  une  empreinte 
d'impression  ou  d'illustration  et  en  terminant  par 
la  dernlAre  page  qui  comporte  une  telle 
empreinte. 

Un  des  symboles  suivants  apparattra  sur  la 
derniire  image  de  cheque  microfiche,  selon  Ie 
cas:  ie  symbols  — »>  signifie  "A  SUiVRE",  Ie 
symbols  y  signifie  "FIN". 

Les  cartes,  planches,  tableaux,  etc.,  peuvent  fttre 
fiimAs  A  des  taux  de  reduction  diff brents. 
Lorsque  Ie  document  est  trop  grand  pour  dtre 
reproduit  en  un  seul  clich*,  il  est  film*  A  partir 
de  Tangle  supArieur  gauche,  de  gauche  A  droite. 
et  de  heut  en  bes,  en  prenant  Ie  nombre 
d'images  nAcessaire.  Les  diagrammes  suivants 
illustrent  la  mithode. 


rata 

3 


eiure. 


3 

32X 


1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

'     B8th  Congress, 
1st  Session. 


II '» 


4  ';/- 


Rep.  No.  308, 


OREGON  TEllRITORY, 

(To  accompany  bill  H.  R.  No.  21. J 


Ho.  OF  Reps. 


March  12,  1844, 


Mr.  A.  V.  Brown,  from  th«»  Committee  on  the  Territories,  made  the  fol- 
lowing 

REPORT: 


The  Committee  on  the  Territories^  to  uhom  ivas  referred  the  hill  No.  21, 
"/«  organize  a  Territorial  Govermnent  in  the  Oregon  Territory^  and 
for  other  purposes  J^  beg  leave  to  present  the  following  report: 


The  committee  hav^  not  thought  it  advisable  to  recommend  the  passage 
of  the  bill  referred  to  them,  organizing  as  it  does  a  new  and  distinct  Terri- 
torial Government  for  the  Oregon  country.  They  have  considered  the 
present  population  of  that  region  hardly  sufficient  for  such  a  purpose.  They 
have,  however,  prepared  another  bill,  in  lieu  of  that  one,  which  is  herewith 
reported,  and  its  passage  most  earnestly  recommended  to  the  favorable  con- 
sideration of  the  House.  This  bill  proposes  to  extend  the  civil  and  crimi- 
nal jurisdiction  of  the  Territory  of  Iowa  over  all  our  Pacific  and  interme- 
diate possessions.  It  provides  for  the  establishment  of  the  necessary  mili- 
tary posts  within  the  country,  and  on  the  principal  route  leading  to  it.  It 
pledges  the  future  action  of  Congress  in  giving  to  all  such  as  have  gone,  or 
may  go  there,  such  an  interest  in  land  as  may  secure  to  them  homes,  and 
some  remuneration  for  the  toils  and  hardships  incident  to  the  settlement  of 
every  new  country.  Such  provisions  have  been  inserted  in  the  proposed 
amendment,  as  will  make  the  exercise  of  jurisdiction  and  the  enforcement 
of  our  laws  in  that  distant  country  neither  difficult  nor  expensive.  We  do 
not  doubt,  however,  that  the  whole  arrangement  will  be  of  but  brief  dura- 
tion ;  giving  way,  in  a  few  years,  to  a  full  and  complete  organization  of  one 
or  more  distinct  Territorial  Governments  west  of  the  Rocky  mountains. 

In  presenting  this  bill  thus  modified,  and  recommending  its  passage,  it  is  a 
source  of  satisfaction  to  the  committee  to  know  that  it  is  in  precise  accord- 
ance with  the  avowed  opinions  not  only  of  the  present,  but  of  several  pre- 
ceding Presidents  of  the  United  States.  As  far  back  as  December.  1824, 
Mr.  Monroe,  in  his  annual  message  to  the  two  Houses  of  Congress,  strongly 
recommended  the  propriety  of  establishing  a  military  post  at  the  mouth  of 
the  Columbia  river,  or  at  some  other  point  within  our  acknowledged  limits. 
This  he  did,  not  only  as  a  protection  to  our  then  increasing  commerce,  and 
to  our  fisheries,  but  as  a  protection  to  all  our  interests  in  that  quarter,  and 
as  a  means  of  conciliating  the  various  tribes  of  Indians  throughout  our 
northwestern  possessions.  He  further  added,  "that  it  was  thought,  also, 
that  by  the  establishment  of  such  a  post,  the  intercourse  helween  our  west- 
ern States  and  Territories  and  the  Pacific,  and  our  trade  with  the  tribes 


Blair  &  Rives,  priat. 


M< 


J 


'-\ 


v., 


»•? 


^  c?v  -7,  c^_ 


2  Rep.  No.  308. 

residing  in  the  interior,  on  each  side  of  tlie  Rocky  moiintnlns,  wonid  be 
essentially  promoted."  Mr.  Adams,  in  his  message  to  the  next  succeeding 
Congress,  follows  up  this  suggestion  of  Mr.  Monroe,  and  recommends  not 
only  the  establishment  of  a  mihtary  post  at  or  near  the  mouth  of  the  Colum- 
bia, but  the  equipnjent  of  a  public  ship  for  the  exploration  of  the  whole 
northwestern  coast  of  this  continent.  If  these  recommendations  are  limited 
to  the  proteclionof  our  commerce  and  fisheries,  to  the  trade  with  the  inter- 
mediate Indian  tribes,  and  to  the  promotion  of  our  intercourse  with  the 
Pacific,  it  must  have  been  only  because  at  that  time  we  had  no  fixed  popu- 
lation there,  looking  to  the  permanent  settlement  of  the  country  for  agri- 
cultural purposes.  Since  1824  and  1825,  however,  we  have  advanced  far 
beyond  the  then  necessities  of  our  people,  and  are  now  called  upon  to  give 
the  protection  of  our  laws  and  the  benefit  of  our  free  inslirafions  to  those 
who  have  made  it  their  permanent  abode,  and  whose  purposes  are  to  bring 
into  cultivation  that  vast  portion  of  our  empire. 

The  President  of  the  United  States,  in  his  annual  message  at  the  com- 
mencement of  the  present  session,  presented  these  altered  circumstances  in 
the  condition  of  that  country  to  the  attention  of  Congress,  and  with  much 
cogency  recommended  the  very  measure  which  the  committee  have  re- 
ported. He  says :  "  In  the  mean  time,  it  is  proper  to  remark,  that  many  of 
our  citizens  are  either  already  established  in  the  territory,  or  are  on  their 
way  thither,  for  the  purpose  of  forming  permanent  settlements,  while  others 
are  preparing  to  follow ;  and,  in  view  of  these  facts,  I  must  repeat  the  rec- 
ommendations contained  in  previous  messages,  for  the  establishment  of  mil- 
itary posts  at  such  places  on  the  line  of  travel,  as  will  furnish  security  and 
protection  to  our  hardy  adventurers  against  hostile  tribes  of  Indians  inhab- 
iting those  extensive  regions.  Our  laws  should  also  follow  them,  so  modi- 
fied as  the  circumstances  of  the  case  may  seem  to  require.  Under  the 
influence  of  our  free  system  of  government,  new  republics  are  destined  to 
spring  np,  at  no  distant  day,  on  the  shores  of  the  Pacific,  similar  in  policy 
and  in  feeling  to  those  existing  on  this  side  of  the  Rocky  mountains,  and 
giving  a  wider  and  more  extensive  spread  to  the  principles  of  civil  and  reli- 
gions liberty." 

In  the  bill  which  we  have  reported,  it  will  be  found  that  we  have  re- 
sponded not  only  to  the  opinions  of  Mr.  Monroe  and  Mr.  Adams  in  relation  to 
the  establishment  of  military  posts,  but  we  have  adopted  the  just  and  proper 
sentiments  of  the  present  Executive  in  reference  to  the  increased  settlement 
of  our  population  in  that  distant  region.  Our  people  have  gone  to  Oregon, 
and  we  are  only  sending  our  laws  after  them.  It  might  be  greater  pre- 
cision, however,  to  say  that  our  laws  had  preceded  them ;  that  they 
had  been  always  there,  coeval  with  our  rights  to  the  country ;  and 
that  we  are  now  only  proposing  to  give  them"  activity  and  force  by  gov- 
ernment organization.  In  doing  so,  we  introduce  no  new  policy  into  the 
action  of  the  Federal  Government.  At  the  time  of  the  establishment 
of  our  national  independence,  our  population  was  confined  to  a  com- 
paratively narrow  slip  of  country  bordering  on  the  Atlantic.  As  fast,  how- 
ever,  as  our  settlements  extended  into  the  west  in  suflicient  numbers,  new 
territories  were  established.  These,  at  first,  were  confined  to  the  Mississippi 
river  for  their  common  western  boundary.  After  the  acquisition  of  Louisiana, 
the  same  wise  and  necessary  policy  has  been  pursued,  observing  limits,  in 
several  cases,  but  little  short  of  the  Rocky  mountains.  In  the  rapid  march 
of  our  empire-republic,  the  time  has  now  arrived  for  the  extension  of  tlte 


t 


'> 


t 


Itep.  No.  308. 


8 


T 


same  policy  beyond  those  mountains,  recognising  the  shores  of  the  Pacific 
as  the  only  final  terminus  of  our  dominions. 

The  propriety  of  this  extension  is  dependent,  of  course,  on  the  validity  of 
the  tiile  of  the  United  States  to  the  territory  embraced  in  the  bill.  This 
question  we  were  obliged  to  meet,  anterior  to  all  action  on  the  subject.  In 
its  investigation,  we  have  looked  into  the  most  authentic  histories  of  voyages 
and  discoveries  on  the  northwestern  coast  of  America.  We  have  consulted 
the  opinions  of  our  most  distinguished  and  best-informed  public  men,  from 
Mr.  Jeft'erson  down  to  the  present  time.  We  have  carefully  examined  nil 
the  treaties  among  the  several  nations  claiming  to  have  an  interest  in  the 
subject ;  not  neglecting  to  profit  by  the  reports  made  by  Mr.  Baylies  to  the 
19th,  and  Mr.  Gushing  to  the  25th  Congress,  and  by  the  several  reports  and 
speeches  of  the  late  lamented  Senator  from  Missouri,  who  had  devoted  so 
much  of  the  labor  of  his  great  mind  to  the  investigation  of  this  subject.  The 
result  of  all  this  investigation  has  been  a  thorough  conviction  that  the  United 
States  has  a  good  and  indefeasible  title,  as  against  any  foreign  power,  to  the 
country  extending  east  and  west  from  the  Rocky  mountains  to  the  Pacific 
ocean;  and  north  and  south  from  the  limits  of  Mexico,  in  latitude  42  degrees 
north,  to  those  of  Russia,  in  latiuide  54  degrees  40  minutes  north. 

The  southern  boundary  was  fixed  by  the  treaty  with  Spain  in  1819,  com- 
monly called  the  Florida  treaty.  By  that  treaty,  it  is  agreed  that  the  boundary- 
line  between  the  possessions  of  the  two  nations  west  of  the  Mississippi,  after 
reaching  the  river  Arkansas,  shall  be.  »  following  the  course  of  the  southern 
bank  of  the  Arkansas  to  its  source  in  latitude  42  degrees  ;  and  thence,  by 
that  parallel  of  latitude,  to  the  South  sea."  In  1828  this  line  was  con- 
firmed by  Mexico,  as  the  successor  of  Spain,  in  a  treaty  of  limits  between 
herself  and  the  United  States.  The  southern  boundary,  is  then,  fixed  and 
certain.  As  to  the  northern  one,  it  was  settled  at  54  degrees  and  40  min- 
utes by  a  treaty  between  the  United  States  and  Russia,  dated  17th  April, 
1824 ;  by  which  it  was  agreed  that  there  should  not  be  formed,  by  the 
citizens  of  the  United  States,  or  under  the  authority  of  the  same,  any  estab- 
lishment upon  the  northwest  coast  of  America,  nor  in  any  of  the  islands 
adjacent,  to  the  north  of  54  degrees  and  40  minutes  of  north  latitude ;  and, 
in  like  manner,  none  by  Russia  or  her  subjects  south  of  the  same  parallel 
of  latitude. 

By  virtue  of  these  treaties,  Russia  on  the  north,  Mexico  on  the  south, 
and  the  United  States  on  the  east,  are  all  agreed  and  well  satisfied  as  to 
the  boundaries  of  the  Oregon  country.  Great  Britain  alone  asserts  or  pre- 
tends any  title  to  it,  or  any  part  of  it,  adverse  to  that  of  the  United  States. 

Before  we  enter  upon  any  examination  of  her  title,  we  respectfully  beg 
leave  to  submit  our  views  on  another  question  presented  to  our  considera- 
tion. It  is  contended  that  the  passage  of  the  bill  now  reported  would  be 
inconsistent  with  the  actual  relations  of  the  two  Governments  defined  by 
the  convention  of  the  20th  October,  1818.     The  3d  article  is  as  follows: 

"  Art.  3.  It  is  agreed  that  any  country  that  may  be  claimed  by  either  parly 
on  Ihe  northwest  coast  of  America,  westward  of  the  Stony  mountains,shall,  to- 
gether with  its  harborsjbays,  and  creeks,  and  the  navigation  of  all  rivers  with- 
in the  same,  be  free  and  open  for  the  term  often  years  from  the  date  of  the  sig- 
nature  of  the  present  convention,  to  the  vessels,  citizens,  and  subjects  of  the 
two  powers.  It  being  well  understood,  that  this  agreement  is  not  to  be  con- 
strued to  the  prejudice  of  any  claim  which  either  of  the  two  high  contract- 
ing parties  may  have  to  any  part  of  said  country;  nor  shall  it  be  taken  to 


iV\; 


4  Rep.  No.  308. 

affect  the  claim  of  any  other  power  or  state  to  any  part  of  said  country: 
the  only  object  of  the  high  conlructing  parties,  in  tfiut  respect,  being  to  pre- 
vent disputes  and  differences  among  themselves." 

The  provisions  of  this  article  were  indefinitely  extended  by  the  con- 
vention of  1827 — with,  however,  an  agreement  that  it  should  be  competent 
for  either,  at  any  time  after  the  20th  of  October,  1828,  on  giving  due  notice 
of  twelve  months  to  the  other  contracting  party,  to  annul  and  abrogate  said 
convtiution.  The  first  remark  which  the  committee  will  submit  on  the 
provisions  of  the  3d  article  of  the  convention  of  1818,  is,  that  they  do  not 
refer  to  the  possessian  of  the  territory  at  all.  That  possession  had  always 
been  in  the  United  States  until  the  war  of  1812.  It  was  then  lost  by  con- 
quest ;  but  it  was  fully  restored  by  the  treaty  of  peace,  and  the  formal  sur- 
render of  it  to  the  United  States  under  that  treaty.  It  was  only  the  right  of 
entering  into  the  country— into  its  bays  and  harbors — for  the  mere  purposes 
of  such  trade  and  commerce  as  was  then  carried  on  in  that  region,  that  was 
secured  to  the  subjects  of  Great  Britain.  The  same  rights  might  have 
been  extended  to  any  of  the  ports,  bays,  and  rivers  of  the  Atlantic;  but  if 
extended  in  the  precise  words  of  the  convention  of  1818,  who  v/ould  have 
thought  that  Great  Britain  would  have  been  admitted  to  the  joint  ocr.npunci/ 
of  Massachusetts,  New  York,  Virginia,  the  Carolinas,  and  the  other  Slates  of 
the  Union'/ 

If  the  possession  of  the  territory  was  in  the  United  States  at  the  time  of 
the  convention  of  1818 — a  fact  which  no  one  has  ever  attempted  to  deny — 
the  provision  of  the  3d  section  can  only  be  regarded  as  a  permission  to  the 
subjects  of  Great  Britain  to  participate  with  ours  in  the  individual  rights  of 
trade  and  commerce  enjoyed  by  our  own  citizens  within  the  territory.  The 
bill  which  is  now  reported  does  not  eject  them  from  the  country  at  all.  It 
does  not  deprive  them  of  tfie  privilege  of  entering  into  the  couutiy,  its  biiys 
and  rivers ; — not  at  all.  But  it  even  guaranties  a  fuller  and  more  perfect  en- 
joyment of  these  individual  rights,  under  an  organized  and  well  adiiiinis- 
tered  system  of  laws.  From  extreme  caution,  and  to  exhibit  toward  Great 
Britain  the  most  scrupulous  regard  for  all  existing  stipulations,  which  might 
be  supposed  to  have  an  application  to  the  subject,  the  bill  proposes  a  speedy 
surrender  of  ail  British  subjects  who  may  be  charged  with  any  violations  of 
our  laws  to  the  nearest  British  authorities  having  jurisdiction  over  such  cases. 
The  permission  given  to  British  subjects  to  participate  with  our  own  citizc  ns 
in  the  enjoyment  of  personal  or  individual  rights  within  the  territory,  never 
can  be  considered  as  circumscribing  the  right  of  the  United  States  to  establish 
a  proper  government  for  the  regulation  ot  all  persons  inhabiiing  the  country, 
of  which  she  had  the  undisputed  possession.  In  this  view,  the  provision 
for  delivering  up  British  subjects  to  their  nearest  tribunals  could  not  have 
been  justly  required;  but  the  same  has  been  conceded  by  the  committee,  on 
the  scrupulous  principle  just  adverted  to. 

As  to  the  twelve  months'  notice  required  to  be  given  by  the  convention  of 
1827,  the  committee  do  not  regard  that  as  at  all  necessary,  in  order  to  open 
the  way  to  such  action  as  is  contemplated  by  this  bill.  The  committee  do 
not  know  that,  for  the  purpose  of  organizing  such  a  government  as  is  now 
contemplwied,  it  is  at  all  important  to  annul  or  abrogate  that  convention. 
That  country  is  large,  and  there  is  evidently  room  enough  for  the  subjects 
and  citizens  of  both  countries,  in  the  exercise  of  all  their  enterprise  in  trade 
and  commerce.  All  that  will  be  required  of  them  is  to  confonnto  the  laws, 
and  to  rcsptct  t!ic  iiislitutioiis,  which  \vc  may  establish.   Doing  this,  we  shall 


\ 

1 


Rep.  No.  308.  5 

nevor  envy  the  equal  participation  in  the  benefits  nnd  advantages  to  be  de- 
rived  from  a  well  organized  system  of  government.  Any  possible  incon- 
veniences arising  from  the  continuance  of  the  convention  of  1827,  not  now 
nnliripaled  by  the  committee,  can,  and  doul)tless  will,  be  looked  to  by  the 
Executive,  who  can  at  any  time  abrogate  the  same,  by  giving  the  notice 
contemplated  in  it.  The  giving  of  that  notice,  being  a  matter  of  treaty  stip- 
ulation, belongs,  perhaps,  exclusively  to  the  Executive  ;  on  whose  province 
there  is  no  occasion,  and  the  committee  have  no  inclination,  to  intrude. 

In  connexion  with  this  branch  of  the  subject,  the  committee  will  advert 
to  tlie  fact,  (as  it  is  now  understood  to  be,)  that  negotiations  are  in  progress 
between  the  United  States  and  Great  Britain  on  the  subject  of  this  territory. 
They  conceive  that  this  should  make  no  difference  in  the  action  of  the 
committee.  They  have  to  act  on  the  subject  as  it  is  now  presented  to  them — 
not  as  it  may  be  changed  or  altered  hereafter,  by  any  future  arrangements 
between  the  two  countries.  If  the  United  States  have  wow  the  right  to  the 
Oregon  country — if  they  have  now  the  sole  and  undisputed  possession  of 
it — if  our  people  have  now  permanent  settlements  in  it,  and  are  every  day 
suffering  for  the  want  of  a  properlyorgatiized  government  to  protect  the 
virtuous  and  to  restrain  the  vicious, — we  ought  not  to  withhold  our  action, 
under  the  possibility  of  some  alteration  in  the  relations  of  the  two  countries 
in  that  region,  at  some  uncertain  and  indefinite  period.  That  negotiation 
can  still  progress;  and  any  treaty  stipulation  inconsistent  with  our  legisla- 
tion, will  control  it  to  the  extent  of  such  interference.  No  one,  we  be- 
lieve, supposes  that  the  pending  negotiations  can  ever  result  in  tfie  entire 
loss  of  the  Oregon  country.  Enough  will  doubtless  •  i.v»ain  of  it,  under 
any  circumstances,  to  require  the  extension  of  our  laws  iii  ihe  manner  now 
coniempl.ited.  If  the  present  negotiation  relates  (as  the  committee  appre- 
hend it  does)  solely  to  the  ascertainment  and  settlement  of  the  northern 
boundary  of  the  territory,  they  can  anticipate,  from  no  examination  which 
they  have  been  able  to  make,  any  such  loss  of  country  in  thai  direction,  as 
will  at  all  affect  the  propriety  of  the  passage  of  the  bill  which  is  now  pre- 
sented to  the  House. 

There  is  enough,  doubtless,  for  that  negotiation  to  act  upon,  without  re- 
sorting even  to  the  supposition  that  any  portion  of  our  territory  south  of  lat- 
itude 54  degrees  40  minutes  north  may  be  lost.  We  propose  the  extension 
of  our  laws  fully  up  to  that  latitude,  and  will  now  submit  the  grounds  on 
which  we  maintain  that  the  United  States  has  a  full  and  indefeasible  right 
and  title  to  that  point.  We  adopt  as  our  own,  and  submit  to  the  House,  the 
views  of  a  former  committee*  on  the  question  of  title;  which  we  believe- 
must  carry  conviction  to  every  disinterested  and  impartial  mind: 

As  preliminary  to  the  discussion  of  the  contested  points  of  the  case,  and 
as  net  dful  to  the  full  understanding  of  its  merits,  the  committee  premise  a 
brief  account  of  the  voyages  of  discovery,  enterprises,  and  settlements  of 
the  powers  in  question,  on  the  northwest  coast  and  interior  of  the  conti- 
nent, so  far  as  they  bear  upon  the  present  controversy  ;  referring  to  the  doc- 
uments appended  to  this  report  for  a  full  and  detailed  account  of  the  his- 
tory of  northwestern  discovery. 

Spain,  having  established  her  power  in  Mexico,  was  impelled,  by  the  same 
causes  which  led  to  the  original  conquest,  to  seek  its  extension.  She  was  im- 
pelled to  undertake  expeditions  by  sea  and  land  to  the  northwest,  by  another 
inducertlent — namely,  the  hopeof  discovering  a  direct  northerly  pat>sage,  by 

*  See  Mr.  Cusbiog's  report  to  the  25tb  Congress. 


it 

< 


$  Kep.  No.  308. 

sen,  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific  ocean  ;  which  nnticipntcti  passage  used 
to  be  projected  in  the  old  maps  of  the  seventeenth  century  by  Mie  name  oi 
the  Straiis  of  Aninn. 

Hernan  Cortes  himself  set  the  example  of  these  enterprises,  by  under- 
taking several  of  them  at  his  own  charge,  and  conducting  one  of  them  in 
person,  ex()loring  the  Gulf  of  California,  and  thus  leading  the  way  to  the 
settlement  of  that  country,  and  to  the  subsequent  voyages  of  the  Spaniards 
and  others  along  the  northwestern  coast  of  America.  Prior  to  the  visit  of 
any  other  Kuropean  power,  the  Spaniards  had  prosecuted  their  discoveries 
to  Cape  Mendocin  and  Cape  Blanco,  in  voyages  of  unquestionable  authen- 
ticity. Complete  and  authentic  evidence  also  exists,  that  Don  Esteban 
Martinez,  in  1774,  made  the  first  discovery  of  the  sound  of  Noolka  ;  that 
in  1775  Don  Bruno  Eleceta,  Don  Juan  de  Ayala  ai;d  Don  Juande  la  Bode- 
ga y  Quadra,  were  the  first  to  discover  the  bay  ol  the  river  Columbia,  which 
they  culled  Entrada  de  Hiccta. 

Though  there  is  not  the  same  authentic  evidence  of  some  other  voyages 
of  ancient  date  in  that  quarter  ascribed  to  Spanish  navigators,  yet  it  is  at 
present  generally  admitted  that  in  1509  Juan  de  Fuca  discovered  and  ex- 
plored the  strait  which  now  universally  bears  his  name. 

The  river  Columbia  itself  was  first  entered  and  explored  by  Captain 
Hobert  Gray,  of  Boston,  in  the  year  1702,  in  the  ship  Columbia,  whose 
name,  applied  to  the  river,  also  perpetuates  the  memory  of  the  original  dis- 
covery. 

The  first  European  establishment  founded  on  any  part  of  the  northwest 
coast,  from  California  to  the  40lh  degree  of  north  latitude,  was  made  by 
Fidulgo,  in  1790,  on  the  main  land  at  the  eutrnnce  of  the  strait  of  Juan  de 
Fuca, 

Leaving  the  Pacific,  we  find  that  three  only  of  the  great  European  pow- 
ers acquired  a  permanent  foothold  in  North  America,  from  the  side  of  the 
Atlantic. 

Spain  secured  to  herself  the  countries  of  Mexico  extending  from  the 
Gulf  of  Mexico  to  the  Pacific,  and  so  indefinitely  to  the  northwest ;  and 
also  the  country  of  Florida,  limited  to  the  northeastern  shore  of  the  Gulf. 

France  obtained  the  valley  of  the  St.  Lawrence  on  the  one  hand,  and 
that  of  the  Mississippi  on  the  other ;  the  whole  connected  together  by  the 
great  lakes,  and  constituting  a  noble  and  unique  territory,  stretching  from 
the  northeast  to  the  southwest,  in  the  rear  of  the  English  settlements  on 
the  Atlantic,  restricted  by  them  on  the  east,  but  extending  westward  indefi- 
nitely towards  the  Pacific  and  the  possessions  of  Spain. 

England  got  possession  of  the  region  of  country  on  the  Atlantic,  extend- 
ing from  the  neighborhood  of  the  St.  Lawrence  on  the  northeast,  to  Florida 
on  the  south,  and  westward  indefinitely,  in  conflict  with  the  claims  of 
France  in  that  direction.  England  also  established  herself  in  the  waters 
of  Hudson's  bay,  with  a  claim  extending  into  the  interior  indefinitely,  in 
conflict  with  the  claims  of  France  along  the  St.  Lawrence  and  the  great 
lakes. 

Whatever  rights,  be  the  same  more  or  les.s,  were  held  by  Spain  in  the 
northwest,  have,  as  already  stated,  been  expressly  ceded  to  the  United 
States  by  Spain  and  by  the  Mexican  republic. 

Whatever  rights  Great  Britain  had  in  virtue  of  her  possessions  between 
the  St.  Lawrence  and  F^lorida,  she  recognised  as  vested  in  the  United  States 
by  the  treaty  concluded  at  Paris  the  3d  September,  1783,  comnraonly  called 
the  "  treaty  of  peace ;"  acknowledging  the  said  States  to  be  free,  sovereign, 


! 


1 


{ 


Rep.  No.  308.  7 

and  independent;  nnd  relinquishing  "all  claims  to  tho  government,  pro- 
pricly,  and  territorial  riffhls  of  the  same,  and  every  part  thereof  J^ 

Wlmiever  rights  France  had,  subsequently  to  the  conquest  by  Great 
Oriluin  and  the  now  United  States,  (lor  we  performed  a  large  part  of  that 
work.)  of  that  part  of  her  possessions  lying  on  the  St.  Lawrence,  she  ceded 
to  the  Uiiited  States,  by  the  treaty  concluded  at  Paris  the  iiOth  of  April, 
iyU3,  commonly  called  "the  Louisiana  treaty." 

At  the  date  of  the  Florida  treaty,  therefore,  in  1819,  there  remained  to 
Great  Britain,  of  her  ancient  territory  in  North  America,  only  tho  countries 
of  tho  St.  Lawrence  and  of  Hudson's  bay;  all  the  residue  of  the  continent, 
eastward  of  the  Rocky  mountains,  and  sonMi  and  west  to  the  confines  of 
the  iVlexican  republic,  having  become  undeniabiy  vested  in  the  United 
States. 

This  result  was  reached  by  various  treaties  and  conventions  between 
Spain,  France,  Great  Britain,  and  the  United  Stales ;  the  combination  of 
wliich  treaties  restricted  or  extended,  in  one  way  or  another,  by  express  com- 
pacts, the  respective  territories  of  Great  Britain  and  tho  United  States; 
which  compacts,  therefore,  and  the  acts  consequent  on  them,  constitute  the 
n(?xt  stage  in  the  history  of  the  title  of  the  United  States  to  the  territory  of 
Oregon. 

By  treaty  between  Great  Britain  and  France,  concluded  at  Utrecht,  the 
17th  of  April,  1713,  art.  iii,  "Hudson's  bay,  together  with  all  lands,  &e., 
which  belong  thereunto,"  was  restored  to  Great  Britain;  and  the  article  pro- 
ceeds: 

"  It  is  agrrefd  on  both  sides  to  determine  within  a  year,  by  commissioners  lo  be  forthwith 
named  by  each  party,  the  limits  which  are  to  be  fixed  between  the  said  Bay  of  Hudson  and  the 
places  appertaining  to  the  French;  *  *  *  *  the  same  cummiNsioners  shall  also  have  orders 
to  describe  and  settle,  in  like  manner,  the  boundaries  between  the  other  British  and  French 
coiunies  in  those  parts." — Jenkinson's  Trecties,  vol.  8. 

And  the  commissioners  appointed  under  this  article  adopted  the  49th 
parallel  of  latitude  as  the  line  of  demarcation  between  the  possessions  of 
Englitnd  and  France  in  that  quarter,  and  west  of  the  Mississippi;  in  pur- 
suance of  which,  the  same  limit  was  ratified  and  confirmed  between  Great 
Britain  and  the  United  States,  as  the  successor  of  f^rance,  by  the  second 
article  of  the  convention  of  the  20th  of  October,  1818,  so  far  west  as  to  the 
Rocky  mountains. 

By  the  treaty  between  Great  Britain,  France,  and  Spain,  concluded  at 
Paris  the  10th  of  February,  1763,  the  former  was  confirmed  in  the  pos- 
session of  the  conquered  provinces  of  France  on  the  St.  Lawrence ;  and, 
on  the  other  hand,  relinquished  irrevocably  all  claims  to  territory  beyond 
the  Mississippi,  in  the  seventh  article,  as  follows: 

"The  confines  between  the  British  and  French  possessions  in  North  America  shall  be  fixed 
irrevocably  (seront  irrevocablement  fixes)  by  a  line  drawn  along  ihe  middle  of  the  Mississippi, 
from  its  source  to  the  river  Iberville;  and  from  thence,  by  the  middle  of  the  river  Iberville,  and 
the  lakes  Maurepas  and  Ponlchartrain,  to  the  sea;"  (that  is,  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.) — (CAoi- 
men,  vol.  ii ;  Martens  ReeueU,  voL  1.) 

The  Louisiana  treaty  cedes  to  the  United  States  the  colony  or  province 
of  Louisiana,  with  the  same  extent  it  had  in  the  hands  of  Spain  in  1800, 
and  that  it  had  when  previously  possessed  by  France,  with  all  its  rights 
and  appurtenances. 

This  description  is,  to  be  sure,  sufficiently  loose.  But  Napoleon,  having 
made  the  cession  at  tlie  moment  of  going  to  war  with  Great  Britain,  and 


8 


Re  >.  No.  308. 


1 


'li 


I 


having  made  it  to  prevent  the  conntry  from  falling  info  the  Finnds  of  iFie 
lutter,  and  having  ceded  it  to  the  United  Slates  out  of  friendly  <eelin>rs  to- 
wards us,  and  in  order  to  augment  our  power  as  oguinst  that  of  Hriiain  ; — 
being  actuated  by  these  motives,  he,  of  course,  chose  to  execute  a  quit- 
claim, rather  than  a  warranty  of  boundarres;  and  the  United  States,  pliiced 
in  the  position  of  acquiring,  at  a  cheap  price,  o  territory  of  a  value  alto- 
gether inestimable  to  her,  {tor  Louisiana  would  have  been  well  purchased 
at  a  cost  of  twenty  times  sixty  millions  of  francs,)  had  no  disposition  to  be 
hypercritical  on  this  point,  and  thus  fuizard  the  loss  of  such  a  favorable 
contingency.  ( Jinrbe  Marbois,Hist.  ^^r,  de  la  Louisiane.)  And  though 
much  controversy  sprang  tip  in  regard  to  the  southwestern  or  southeastern 
limits  of  Louisiana,  yet  all  this  resolved  itself  at  length  into  a  question  with 
Spain,  as  did  also  the  doubts  as  to  the  western  limits  of  Louisiana. 

Mr.  Jefferson,  at  any  rale,  took  enlarged  views  of  the  rights  of  the  Uni- 
ted States  in  this  respect;  and  in  his  message  to  Congress  of  the  18lh  of 
January,  1803,  recomniended  the  exploration  of  the  northwestern  parts 
of  the  country — not  on  the  Missouri  merely,  but  "even  to  the  Western 
ocean;"  putting  the  expediency  as  w<ll  as  constitutionality  of  the  explora- 
tion expressly  on  the  ground  of  its  being  territory  claimed  by  the  I'liited 
States ;  and  the  fruit  of  this  recommendation  was  the  celebrated  expedition 
of  Lewis  and  Clark. 

Prior  to  that  time,  litile  was  known  of  the  rast  region  watered  by  the 
Missouri  and  the  Columbia,  and  of  the  intervening  Rocky  mountains,  now 
so  familiar  to  the  hardy  hunters  of  the  west.  Of  the  latter  river,  the  ear- 
liest mention  known  to  the  committee  is  by  Jonathan  Carver,  a  citizen  of 
the  then  colony  of  Connecticut,  who  trav(  lied  among  the  Indians  of  the 
Upper  Mississippi  in  17(53,  and  who,  in  his  book,  speaks  of  the  "Oregon,  or 
River  of  the  West,"  and  of  "the  river  Oregon,  or  River  of  the  West,  that 
falls  into  (he  Pacific  ocean  at  the  siraiis  of  Anian."  It  is  probable  that 
Carver  t'erivcd  his  id'  a  of  the  existence  of  this  river  from  the  wandering 
Indians,  among  whom  he  lived,  and  who  had  either  crossed  the  Rocky 
mountains  themselves,  or  received  visits  from  the  Indians  on  t!ie  oiher  side. 
This,  at  all  events,  seems  to  le  the  origin  of  the  name  Ori.gon.  F^or  there 
is  no  account  of  the  inlet  of  the  river  Columbia  having  been  seen  by  Eu- 
ropean Christians  prior  to  Heceia's  voyage  in  1775;  or  the  mouth  of  the 
river,  before  the  lime  of  Robert  Gray  in  1792;  or  its  upper  waters,  until 
the  expedition  of  Lewis  and  Clark.  Thirty  years  after  the  travels  of  Car- 
ver, indeed^  Alexander  Mackenzie  crossed  the  Rocky  mountains  in  the  ex- 
treme north,  and  fell  upon  a  river  which  he  supposed  to  be  the  Columbia  ; 
but  it  is  now  well  known  and  admitted  on  all  hands  that  he  was  mistaken, 
and  that  the  river  he  saw  is  no  part  of  the  Cotunjbia.  So  that,  whilst  Amer- 
icans were  the  tirst  to  navigate  the  river  Columbia  upwards  from  its  mouth, 
so  were  they  also  the  first  to  explore  it  downwards  from  its  sources.  Lewis 
and  Clark  not  only  explored  the  country  as  ours,  but  they  took  possession 
in  behalf  of  the  United  States;  and  the  expedition  itself,  the  published  ac- 
count of  which  went  forth  to  the  world,  was  notice  to  all  nations  of  our 
claim  of  title,  and  of  the  possession,  by  the  erection  of  works  and  other- 
wise in  assertion  of  the  title. 

This  expedition  was  speedily  followed  by  the  actual  occupation  of  the 
mouth  of  the  river  for  the  purposes  of  trade  and  settlement,  with  the 
sanction  of  the  United  States.  In  1811,  John  Jacob  Astor,  of  New  York, 
(whojby  his  successful  competition  with  British  fur  companies  in  the  uorth- 


. 


Rep.  No.  308. 


9 


west,  had  nircndy  been  of  esseiilinl  service  to  ihc  Uiiiled  States  in  neuiral- 
izinjf  to  some  dej^ree  the  hostile  infUience  exercised  by  foreign  traders  ovvt 
the  Indians  of  the  United  States,)  foresaw  the  nltimate  [toliticnl  iniporluiico 
of  the  (Johimbia,  and  conceived  th«  noble  idea  of  carrying  his  enterprises 
beyond  the  Rocky  mountains,  and  establishing  a  factory  ns  the  nucleus  of 
n  future  setilement  and  colonizuiion  of  the  Oregon.  The  classic  narrative 
of  this  njagnificent  undertaking,  by  Washington  Irving,  has  spread  the  fume 
of  Mr.  Astor's  great  design  wherever  the  H^nglish  langiuige  is  read. 

The  establishment  at  Astoria  was  anterior  to  that  of  any  other  power  on 
the  Columbia.  It  was  broken  up  in  1812,  fraudulently  sold  to  the  North- 
west Company  by  one  of  Mr.  Astor's  agents,  nnd  taken  possession  of  by  the 
British  as  an  act  of  war.  But  the  United  States  claimed  that  the  sale  to 
the  Northwest  Company  of  course  did  not  affi'Ct  the  national  jurisdiction, 
which  continued  of  right  in  the  United  States  ;  and  that,  in  obedience  to  the 
1st  article  of  the  treaty  of  Ghent,  which  stipulated  for  the  mutual  restitu- 
tion of  "all  territory,  places,  and  possession  wliatsoever,  taken  by  either 
party  from  the  other  during  the  war,"  Astoria  (or  P'ort  George)  should  be 
restored  to  tlie  United  States;  and  it  was  done  in  1818,  in  the  most  formal 
manner.  Mr.  Prevost  proceeded  thither  from  Lima,  and  received  the  sur- 
render, as  agent  of  the  United  States,  in  the  following  terms : 

"Act  of  surrender  and  achnoii'ledgment. 

"  In  obedience  to  the  commands  of  his  Royal  HighneHs  the  Prince  Regent,  signified  in  a 
despaicb  (iimi  ihe  right  honorable  Earl  Baihurst,  adilressed  to  the  parliiTs  or  agents  ot  ihe 
Northwest  Company,  bearing  dale  27thJJannary,  1818,  and  In  obedience  lo  subsequent  orders, 
dated  *2<>tl)  July  last,  from  William  H.  sheritC,  esq,,  captain  ot  hi»<  Miije.>ty's  ship  Andromache, 
we,  ihe  undersigned,  do,  in  coni'urmiiy  to  the  Isl  article  of  the  treaty  of  Ghent,  restore  lo  the 
Government  of  the  United  Slates,  through  its  agent,  J.  B.  Pievost,  esq.,  the  settlement  of  Fort 
Georfje,  on  the  river  Columbia. 

'■  Given  under  our  hands,  in  triplicate,  at  Fort  George,  Columbia  river,  this  fth  of  October, 
1818. 

"  P.  HICKEY, 
"  Captain  of  Ms  Mai' sty's  ship  Blosiom. 
"JAMES  REITH, 
"  Oflh/e  Noithicest  Company.^* 

It  is  true,  that  in  the  despatch  of  Earl  Bathurst,  and  in  Lord  Castlereagh's 
instructions  to  the  British  minister  at  Washington,  a  reservation  is  made, 
that  the  surrender  of  possession  should  not  be  deemed  an  admission  of  the 
absolute  and  exclusive  right  of  dominion  claimed  by  the  United  States;  but 
at  the  same  time,  in  explanation  to  Mr.  Rush,  as  stated  in  a  published  de- 
spatch, ''Lord  Castlereagh  admitted,  in  the  most  ample  extent,  our  right  to 
he  reinstated,  and  to  he  the  parly  in  possession  while  treating-  of  the  title." 
In  this  condition  were  the  rights  of  the  parties  in  1818,  at  the  time  of  the 
signature  of  the  convention  of  the  2t)th  of  October  ;  and  by  virtue  of  the 
express  stipulations  of  that  convention,  in  the  same  condition  (so  far  as  re- 
gards possession)  do  the  rights  of  the  parties  still  continue.  If  our  title  was 
good  tlien,  it  is  good  now ;  and  whatever  defects,  if  any,  there  were  in  it 
then,  have  been  healed  by  the  Florida  treaty ;  and  by  the  direct  admissions 
of  the  British  Government,  we  are  entitled  now  to  be  in  possession  of  the 
territory,  and  so  to  remairt,  until  the  question  of  ultimate  title  can  he  de- 
termined. 

It  would  seem,  indeed,  that  the  English  themselves  are  beginning  to  en- 
tertain rational  views  on  the  subject ;  for,  in  remarking  upon  it  recently,  a 
respectable  London  journal  (the  Post)  says : 


10 


Rep.  No.  308. 


"  The  United  States  Government  now  says  that  the  agent  of  the  American  Fur  Company 
had  no  right  to  dispose  of  thejurisdiction  ;  and  the  President,  it  wou'. !  '^ppear,  is  determined  lo 
enforce  that  claim.  It  must  be  admitted  that  the  United  Siales  have  ap^iureniiy  a  good  cam  ; 
and  if,  on  investigation,  it  be  found  that  the  sale  of  the  properly  only  took  place,  and  that  the 
allegiance  could  not  be  transferred,  ihe  surrender  of  the  post  to  the  United  Scales  may  be  the 
most  prudent  course.  We  have  but  a  limited  interest  in  the  occupation  of  Astoria,  while  to  the 
United  Stat«s  it  is  of  great  importance." 

Having  thus  detailed  the  general  facts  affecting  the  title,  it  now  becomes 
the  duty  of  the  committee  to  resume  these  facts,  and  to  apply  to  them  the 
recognised  principles  of  the  law  of  nations,  which  prescribe  the  rights  of 
the  parties. 

The  civilized  people  of  Europe  and  America,  which  are  associated  to- 
gether by  their  identity  of  origin  and  religion,  and  still  more  by  the  inniimera- 
ble  lies  of  a  common  civilization,  of  commercial  and  social  intercourse,  and  the 
intercommunication  of  arts  and  of  knowledge,  and  which  recognise  a  rule 
of  mutual  dealing,  composed  of  treaty  stipulations,  of  prescriptive  usages, 
and  of  certain  general  principles  of  right,  called  the  law  of  nations, — these 
people  have  been  accustomed  to  acquire  and  to  define  their  possessions  in 
America  by  the  rule  of — 1.  The  right  of  discovery  and  exploration,  fol- 
lowed by  settlement ;  and,  2.  Its  corollary,  the  right  of  extension  by  conti- 
guity to  actual  settlements. 

This  rule,  in  its  elementary  ingredients,  is  thus  laid  down  by  Vattel : 

"  All  mankind  have  an  equal  right  to  things  that  have  not  yet  fallen  into  the  possession  of  any 
one;  and  those  things  belong  to  the  person  who  first  takes  possession  of  them.  When,  there- 
fore, a  nation  finds  a  country  uninhabited,  and  without  an  owner,  it  may  lawfully  take  posses- 
sion of  it;  and  afler  it  has  sufficiently  made  known  its  will  in  this  respect,  it  cannot  be  deprived 
of  it  by  another  nation.  Thus,  navigators  going  on  voyages  of  discovery,  furnished  with  a 
commission  from  their  sovereign,  and  meeting  with  islands  or  other  lands  in  a  dest  rt  state, 
have  taken  possession  of  them  in  the  name  of  their  nation  ;  and  this  title  has  been  usually  re- 
spected, provided  it  was  soon  after  followed  by  a  real  possession."— (§  207,  Chitiy's  Vattel.) 

"  The  whole  earth  is  destined  to  feed  its  inhabitants ;  but  this  it  would  be  incapable  of  doing 
if  it  were  uncultivated.  Every  nation  is  then  obliged,  by  the  law  of  nature,  to  cultivate  the  land 
that  has  fallen  to  its  share;  and  it  has  no  right  to  enlarge  its  boundaries,  or  have  recourse  to 
the  assistance  of  other  nations,  but  in  proportion  as  the  land  in  its  possession  is  incapable  of 
furnishing  it  with  necessaries.  Those  nations  (such  as  ttie  ancient  Germans,  and  Kome  modern 
Tartars)  who  inhabit  fertile  countries,  but  disdam  to  cultivate  iheir  lands,  and  choose  raiher  to 
live  by  founder,  are  wanting  to  themselves,  are  injurious  to  all  their  neighbors,  and  deserve  to 
be  extirpated  as  savage  and  pernicious  beasts.  There  are  others,  who,  to  avoid  labor,  choose 
lo  live  only  by  hunting,  and  their  flocks.  This  might,  doubtless,  be  allowed  in  the  first  ages  of 
the  world,  when  the  earth,  without  cultivation,  produced  more  than  was  sutiicient  to  feed  its 
small  number  of  inhabitants.  Bui  at  present,  when  the  human  race  is  so  greatly  multiplied, 
it  could  nol  subsist  if  all  nations  were  disposed  lo  live  in  thai  manner.  Those  who  still  pursue 
this  idle  mode  of  life,  usurp  more  extensive  territories  than,  with  a  reasonable  share  of  labor, 
they  would  have  occasion  for;  and  have,  therefore,  no  reason  to  complain  if  other  nations,  more 
industrious  and  loo  closely  confined,  comelo  lake  possession  of  a  part  of  those  lands."— (§  81.) 

"  It  is  asked  whether  a  nation  may  lawfully  take  possession  of  some  part  of  a  vast  country,  in 
which  there  are  none  but  erratic  nations,  whose  scanty  population  is  incapable  of  occupying  the 
whole.  We  have  already  observed, (S  81,)  in  establishing  the  obligation  to  cultivate  the  earth, 
that  those  nations  cannot  exclusively  appropriate  lo  themselves  more  land  than  ihey  have  oc- 
casion for,  or  more  than  they  are  able  lo  settle  and  cultivate.  Their  unsettled  habitation  in 
those  immense  regions  cannot  be  accounted  a  true  and  legal  possession ;  and  the  people  of 
Europe,  too  closely  pent  up  at  home,  finding  land  of  which  the  savages  stood  in  no  particular 
need,  and  of  which  they  made  no  actual  and  constant  use,  were  lawfully  entitled  lo  take  pos- 
session of  it,  and  settle  it  with  colonies."— ($  309.) 

This  rule  of  prior  discovery,  occupation,  and  of  extension  by  contiguity, 
to  the  exclusion  of  others,  has  been  recognised,  with  more  or  less  of  pre- 
cision in  its  application,  by  all  the  Europeans  who  have  established  them- 
selves  in  America,  and  pervades  the  discussions,  negotiations,  and  treaties, 
which  expressly  regulate,  or  which  have  motived,  the  limits  of  their  re- 
pective  territories.    So  far  as  regards  themselves,  and  their  mutual  relations, 


I 


Rep.  No.  308. 


11 


its  chief  defect  is  its  vagueness,  and  (he  consequent  conflict  of  pretensions, 
which  it  either  creates,  or  at  least  does  not  prevent. 

In  its  application  to  the  primitive  inhabitants  of  the  New  World,  it  is 
more  questionable  in  use,  and  more  injurious  in  its  effects.  When  it  be- 
gan to  be  applied  by  Spain,  Portugal,  England,  and  other  European  states 
engaged  in  colonial  enterprises,  it  was  fre(iuently  associated  with  the  idea 
of  religion,  as  exemplified  in  the  bull  of  Alexander  VI  defining  the  rights 
of  Spain  and  Portugal,  and  the  commission  of  Henry  VII  to  the  Cabots; 
the  concession  being  to  take  possession  of  countries  not  already  occupied 
by  Christians,  Ho'vever  detective,  therefore,  the  rule  may  be  in  itself,  and 
however  destitute  of  all  reason  or  justice  when  made  the  pretext  of  con- 
quering and  reducing  to  servitude  organized  communities  like  those  of 
ancient  Peru  and  Mexico,  it  is,  nevertheless,  the  real  foundation  of  the 
great  European  colonies  in  America.  And  these  rights  of  the  Indians 
stand  in  the  way  of  England,  as  well  as  the  United  States ;  and  cannot  be 
alleged  by  her  against  us,  and  in  her  own  favor.  And  when  a  European 
people  has  become  established  in  America,  and  has  grown  up  to  national 
power,  the  application  of  the  rule  is  then  a  matter  of  absolute  necessity  ;  for 
the  Indian  tribes  being,  for  the  most  part,  migratory  in  their  habits,  as  well 
as  transitory  and  evanescent  in  their  very  existence,  and  possessing  in  their 
barbarous  state  few  or  none  of  the  social  institutions  essential  to  the  pres- 
ervation of  their  separate  nationality, — to  treat  them  as  independent  nations, 
with  all  the  international  rights  of  such,  would  be  absolutely  destructive  to 
the  civilized  states  of  European  stock  in  or  adjoining  which  they  happen 
to  be  found,  by  admitting  within  the  natural  limits  of  such  state  the  in- 
trusion of  some  other  foreign,  and  perhaps  hostile  power. 

Accordingly,  Chief  Justice  Marshall  says: 

"  All  the  nations  of  Europe  who  have  acquired  territory  on  this  continent,  have  asserted  in 
themselves,  and  have  recognised  in  others,  the  exclusive  right  of  the  discoverer  to  appropriate 
the  lands  occupied  by  the  Indians." 

And  Judge  Story  says  : 

"Ii  may  be  asked,  what  was  the  effect  of  this  principle  of  discovery,  in  respect  to  the  rights  of 
the  natives  themselves  1  In  the  view  of  the  Europeans,  it  crejied  a  pecular  relation  between 
themselves  and  the  aboriginal  inhabitants.  The  latter  weie  admitted  to  possess  a  present  right 
of  oi.-cupancy,  or  use  in  the  soil,  which  was  subordinate  to  the  ultimate  dominion  of  the  dis- 
coverer. ♦  •  ♦  *  But,  notwithstanding  this  occupancy,  the  European  discoverers  claimed 
and  exercised  the  right  to  grant  the  soil,  while  yet  in  the  possession  of  the  natives — subject,  how- 
ever, to  their  right  of  occupancy;  and  the  title  so  granted  was  universally  admitted  to  coavey  a 
sufficient  title  in  the  soil  to  the  grantees  in  perfect  dominion." 

And  Chancellor  Kent  says : 

"  This  assumed  but  qualified  dominion  over  the  Indian  tribes,  regarding  them  as  enjoying  no 
higher  title  to  the  soil  than  that  founded  on  simple  occupancy,  and  to  be  incompetent  to  transfer 
their  title  to  any  other  power  than  the  Government  which  claims  the  jurisdiction  of  their  terri- 
tory by  right  of  discovery,  arose,  in  a  great  degree,  from  the  necessity  of  the  case.  ♦  ♦  « 
It  was  founded  on  the  pretension  of  converting  the  discovery  of  the  country  into  a  conquest; 
and  it  is  now  too  late  to  draw  into  discussion  the  validity  of  that  pretension,  or  the  restrictions 
which  it  imposes.  It  is  established  by  numerous  compacts,  treaties,  laws,  and  ordinances,  and 
founded  in  immemorial  usage.  The  country  has  been  colonized  and  settled,  and  is  now  held 
by  that  title.  It  is  the  law  of  the  land,  and  no  court  of  justice  can  permit  the  right  to  be  dis< 
turbed  by  speculative  reasonings  or  abstract  rights." 

And  the  peculiar  necessity  of  adnering  to  the  rule,  in  all  dealings  be- 
tween the  United  States  and  any  of  the  European  Powers,  is  forcibly  illus- 
trated by  the  pretensions  brought  forward  by  Great  Britain  at  Ghent,  and 
the  answer  of  the  Arncricnr«  ministers,  as  in  the  following  extracts  from  one 
of  their  letters : 


12 


Rep.  No.  308. 


■11 


"  No  maxim  of  public  law  has  hiiherto  been  more  universally  established  among  the  powers 
of  Europe  possessina;  territories  in  America,  and  there  is  none  to  which  Great  Britain  has  more 
uniforinlyand  inflexibly  adhered,  than  that  ofsuffering  no  interposition  of  a  foreign  power  in  the 
relations  between  the  acknowledged  sovereign  of  the  lerriiory  and  the  Indians  situated  upon  it. 
Without  the  admission  of  this  principle,  there  would  be  no  intelligible  meaning  attached  to  stipu- 
lation establishing  boundaries  between  the  dominions  in  America  of  civilized  nations  possess- 
ing territories  inhabited  by  Indian  tiibes. 

♦  ♦  *  "The  Indians  residing  within  the  limits  of  the  United  Slates  •  ♦  are  so  far  de- 
pendent, as  not  to  have  the  right  to  dispose  of  their  lands  to  any  private  persons,  nor  lo  any 
power  other  than  the  United  States,  and  to  be  under  their  protection  alone,  and  not  under  that 
of  any  other  power.  Wheiher  called  subjects,  or  by  whatever  name  designated,  such  is  the  re- 
lation between  them  and  the  United  Stales.  ♦  ♦  ♦  These  principles  have  been  uniformly 
recognised  by  the  Indians  themselves  ♦  •  ♦  in  all  the  •  ♦  ♦  treaties  between  them  and 
the  United  States. 

"The  United  States  cannot  consent  that  Indians  residing  within  their  boundaries,  as  ac- 
knowledged by  Great  Britain,  shall  he  included  in  the  treaty  of  peace,  in  any  manner  which 
will  recognise  them  as  independent  nations,  whom  Great  Britain,  having  obtained  this  recog- 
nition, would  hereafter  have  the  right  tu  consider,  in  every  respect,  as  such.  Thus,  lo  recognise 
those  Indians  as  independent  and  sovereign  nations,  would  take  from  the  United  States,  and  trans- 
fer to  those  Indians,  all  the  rights  of  soil  and  sovereignly  over  the  territory  which  they  inhabit; 
and  this  being  accomplished  through  the  agency  of  Great  Britain,  would  place  them  efl'ectually 
and  exclusively  under  her  protection,  instead  of  being,  as  heretofore,  under  that  of  the  United 
States. 

"  The  United  States  claim,  of  right,  with  respect  lo  all  European  nations,  and  particularly 
with  respect  to  Great  Britain,  the  entire  sovereignty  over  the  whole  territory,  and  all  the  per- 
sons embraced  within  the  boundaries  of  their  dominions.  Great  Britain  has  no  right  to  take 
cognizance  of  the  relation  subsisting  between  the  several  communities  or  persons  living  therein  ; 
they  form,  as  to  her,  only  parts  of  the  dominion  of  the  United  States;  and  it  is  altogether  im- 
material whether,  or  how  far,  under  their  political  institutions  or  policy,  these  communities  or 
persons  are  independent  states,  allies,  or  subjects.  With  respect  to  her,  and  all  other  foreign 
nations,  they  are  parts  of  a  whole,  of  which  the  United  States  are  sole  and  absolute  sovereigns." 

Recurring,  then,  to  the  rule  of  discovery  and  occupation  in  its  actual 
practice,  and  for  the  sake  of  greater  pertinency  as  well  as  brevity,  taking 
examples  in  the  practice  of  England  herself  alone,  we  find  that  the  English 
Government,  having  made  discoveries  on  the  Atlantic  coast,  proceeded  to 
occupy,  at  detached  points  on  the  coast,  in  right  of  that  discovery,  and  by 
the  rule  of  discovery  and  occupation,  and  of  extension  by  contiguity,  to 
claim  and  to  grsint,  from  sea  to  sea,  across  the  whole  continent,  as  exempli- 
fied in  the  charters  of  Massachusetts  Bay,  Connecticut,  and  Virginia;  and 
this  not  only  in  those  early  ages,  but  at  the  present  time ;  for  in  right  of 
discovery  and  occupation  in  Hudson's  bay,  she  has  claimed  of  us  since  the 
treaty  of  Ghent,  and  we  have  conceded  to  her,  an  extension  by  contiguity, 
through  the  far  interior  of  the  continent,  to  the  foot  of  the  Rocky  mountains. 

And  it  follows  irresistibly  from  the  premises,  that  the  United  States,  hav- 
ing in  themselves,  and  as  the  successors  of  Spain,  all  the  rights  appertain- 
ing to  the  first  navigation  along  the  northwest  coast,  the  first  discovery  of 
the  bay  of  Juan  de  Fuca,  and  of  the  rivers  of  Aguilar  and  Columbia,  the 
first  exploration  of  the  same,  and  the  first  occupation  orsettle:iient  of  either ; 
and  having,  in  like  manner,  all  the  rights  of  extension  across  to  or  along 
the  Pacific,  by  contiguity,  which  appertained  to  Spain  as  the  possessor  of 
New  Spain,  to  England  prior  to  the  treaty  of  Versailles,  and  to  France  as 
the  possessor  of  Louisiana, — it  follows  irresistibly  that  we  have  the  right  of 
dominion  to  the  territory  of  Oregon,  wholly  exclusive  of  Great  Britain. 

Precisely  the  same  conclusion  may  be  reached  in  a  different  way,  by 
considering  separately  the  Spanish,  the  French,  and  the  AiTierican  title ; 
which,  moreover,  will  be  the  most  convenient  means  of  examining  the  pre- 
tensions of  Great  Britain. 

The  Spanish  title : 

Spain  (or  her  successor,  the  Mexican  republic)  has  rights,  acknowledged 
by  all  the  world,  as  far  north  on  the  Pacific  as  the  A2d  parallel.  And  in  the 


Rep.  No.  308. 


13 


same  right  tliat  she  goes  thus  far,  she  might,  but  for  the  intervention  of 
treaties,  go  further.     Certain  it  is,  that  she  first  explored  the  northwest 
coast,  by  ships  from  Manilla  or  Mexico.    JShe  is  the  admitted  discoverer  of 
the  river  ot  Aguilar,  and  of  the  inlet  of  the  Columbia.    She  discovered  the 
strait  of  Juan  de  Fuca.     She  discovered  Nootka  sound.     First  of  all  Euro- 
peans, she  founded  a  sctttlement  on  that  coast,  at  the  entrance  of  the  strait 
of  Juan  de  Fuca.     And  the  natural  extension  of  her  possessions  northwaid 
from  California,  would  carry  her  along  until  she  met  some  other  power  hav- 
ing equal  or  better  rights ;  and,  with  the  exception  of  the  United  States,  she 
would  encounter  none  such  until  she  arrived  at  Prince  of  Wales  island  in 
h^litude  54,  and  at  the  settlements  of  Russia.     So  well  founded  were  these, 
the  rights  of  Spain,  that  while,  prior  to  the  conclusion  of  the  Florida  treaty, 
Great  Britain  was  accustomed,  as  against  the  United  States,  to  assert  rights 
of  sovereignty  in  the  northwest,  founded  on  pretended  discoveries  and  pur- 
chases from  the  Indians,  afterwards  she  was  constrained  to  change  her 
ground,  as  explained  by  Mr.  Gallatin,  [letter  of  August  7,  1827,)  and  to 
content  herself  with  simply  denying  our  right  of  exclusive  sovereignty, 
without  pretending  to  any  on  her  own  part.   In  fact,  the  claim  of  England, 
by  discovery  and  occupation,  was  of  the  flimsiest  kind — resting  only  upon 
Drake's  voyage,  his  landing  in  the  bay  of  Bodega  (latitude  38)  in  1578, 
and  some  pretended  purchases  by  him  of  the  Indians  of  that  neighborhood  ; 
that  is  to  say,  the  discovery  of  a  country  long  before  discovered  by  the 
Spaniards,  and  taken  possession  of  by  them,  and  to  this  day  comprehended 
within  the  acknowledged  limits  of  California.    As  to  his  purchases  of  the 
Indians,  that  again  can  avail  nothing ;  for,  by  the  municipal  law  of  every 
European  Government  in  America,  (and  of  Britain  above  all,  as  already 
seen,)  no  foreign  state  can  acquire  jurisdiction,  or  even  title,  by  purchase 
from  Indians  within  the  territorial  limits  of  another.     If  it  were  otherwise, 
the  rule  would  be  fatal  to  the  claims  of  Great  Britain  on  the  whole  north- 
west coast;  for  the  owners  of  the  ship  Columbia  made  extensive  purchases 
of  the  Indians,  the  political  benefit  of  which  would  enure  to  the  United 
States.     Her  new  pretensions,  or  new  grounds  of  cavil,  since  resorted  to  by 
her,  depend  on  the  Nootka  convention  (so  called.) 

The  Nootka  convention  is  a  treaty  between  Spain  and  Great  Britain, 
signed  at  the  Escurial  on  the  28th  of  October,  1790,  in  conclusion  of  the 
dispute  occasioned  by  the  seizure  of  English  vessels  at  Nootka  sound  by 
Don  Esteban  Martinez,  as  detailed  in  the  appendix  to  this  report. 

When  the  intelligence  of  that  event  reached  Europe,  it  came  through 
Spain,  who  herself  gave  the  first  information  to  the  English  Government, 
and  accompanied  it  with  the  fullest  declaration  of  a  pacific  purpose,  and  of 
her  readiness  to  enter  into  all  proper  explanations.  But  Mr.  Pitt  haughtily 
repelled  every  friendly  advance,  and  appealed  at  once  to  the  belligerent 
propensities  of  Parliament,  in  behalf  of  the  wounded  honor  of  the  nation  ; 
demanded  and  obtained  an  extraordinary  supply  of  a  million  sterling,  and 
prepared  for  war ;  and  thus  hurried  Spain,  who  had  neither  disposition  nor 
readiness  for  war  .at  that  time,  into  the  conclusion  of  this  treaty. 

Article  1  stipulates  for  the  restitution  of  the  property  of  British  subjects 
dispossessed  by  Martinez. 

Article  2  engages  to  make  restitution  of,  or  compensation  for,  any  like 
seizures  which  might  have  been  subsequently  made. 

Article  3  provides  that  the  respective  subjects  of  Spain  and  Great  Britain 
shall  not  be  disturbed  or  molested;  either  in  navigating  or  carrying  on  their 


14 


Rep.  No.  308. 


p 


h 


fisheries  in  the  Pacific  ocean,  or  in  the  South  seas,  or  in  landing  on  the 
coasts  of  those  seas,  in  places  not  already  occupied,  for  the  purpose  of  car- 
rying on  their  commerce  with  the  natives  of  the  country,  or  o(  making  set- 
tlements there  : — the  whole  subject,  nevertheless,  to  the  restrictions  and  pro- 
visions specified  in  the  three  folloicing  articles. 

Article  4  guards  against  contraband  trade  with  the  Spanish  settlements 
in  America. 

Article  5  agrees  that,  in  any  settlements  to  be  made  by  either  party,  "  the 
subjects  of  the  other  shall  have  free  access,  and  shall  carry  on  their  trade 
without  molestation." 

Article  6  provides  for  the  free  continuance  of  the  fisheries  on  the  east  and 
west  coasts  and  islands  of  South  America,  south  of  the  occupation  of  Spain; 
and  concludes,  "  Provided,  that  the  said  respective  subjects  shall  retain  the 
liberty  of  landing  on  the  coasts  and  islands  so  situated,  for  the  purposes  of 
their  fishery,  and  of  erecting  thereon  huts  and  other  temporary  buildings, 
serving  only  for  those  purposes." 

Great  Britain  contends  that,  with  the  rights  of  Spain  on  the  northwest 
coast,  the  United  States  necessarily  succeeded  to  the  limitations  by  which 
those  rights  were  defined,  and  the  obligations  under  which  they  were  ex- 
ercised ;  and  that,  by  the  above  convention,  all  parts  of  the  northwestern 
coast  of  America,  not  already  occupied  at  that  time  by  either  of  the  con- 
tracting parties,  should  thenceforward  be  equally  open  to  the  subjects  of 
both,  for  all  purposes  of  commerce  and  settlement,  the  sovereignty  remain- 
ing in  abeyance ;  and  that  the  convention,  establishing  a  new  state  of 
things  by  compact,  abrogates  the  pre  existing  rights  (if  any)  appertaining  to 
Spain. 

The  United  States  have  constantly  denied  all  this.  They  say  that,  even 
if  the  British  construction  of  the  Nootka  convention  and  of  its  eflfects  were 
correct,  it  would  avail  nothing ;  because,  though  the  United  States  might 
not  in  other  respects  have  a  good  title  as  against  Spain,  they  have  as  against 
Great  Britain;  which  title  cannot  be  weakened  in  the  hands  of  the  United 
States  by  the  Florida  treaty,  which  quiets  that  of  Spain. 

But  they  deny  the  correctness  of  the  British  construction.  The  Nootka 
convention  is,  on  the  face  of  it,  a  commercial  treaty  merely,  wholly  aside 
from  the  question  of  sovereignty  and  distinct  jurisdiction.  'It  has  a  definite 
general  object — the  regulation  of  the  fisheries  in  the  Pacific  and  the  South 
seas,  so  as  neither  to  exclude  England  nor  injure  Spain.  That  was  the 
point  in  controversy  between  the  two  Governments.  "  The  enemies  of 
peace  have  industriously  circulated,"  says  the  Count  of  Florida  Blanca, "  that 
Spain  extends  pretensions  and  rights  of  sovereignty  over  the  whole  of  the 
South  sea,  as  far  as  China ;"  whereas,  on  the  contrary,  her  sole  aim  was 
to  vindicate  her  sovereignty  on  parts  of  the  coast  to  which,  by  the  law  of 
nations  and  the  recognition  of  all  Europe,  she  had  the  established  pos- 
session, or  right  of  possession.  (Dec.  of  June  4th,  An.  Reg:  1790.)  Accord- 
ingly, in  the  debates  upon  this  treaty  in  Parliament,  it  was  strenuously 
objected  that,  being  a  treaty  of  commerce,  navigation,  and  fishery,  Eng- 
land had  gained  nothing  by  it ;  but  had,  on  the  contrary,  submitted  to  re- 
strictions of  sea-rights,  which  existed  before  unrestricted.  "  In  answer  to 
this,  Mr.  Pitt  maintained  {Pari.  Hist.  vol.  xxviii,  p.  1001)  that  though 
what  this  country  had  gamed  consisted  not  of  new  rights,  it  certainly 
did  of  new  advantages.  We  had  before  a  right  to  the  southern  whale 
fishery,  and  a  right  to  navigate  and  carry  on  fisheries  in  the  Pacific  ocean, 


Bep.  No.  308. 


15 


pos- 
cord- 
ously 
Eng- 
to  re- 
veT  to 
ongh 
tainly 
whale 
cean, 


and  to  trade  on  the  coasts  of  any  part  of  it  northwest  of  America  ;  but 
that  right  not  only  had  not  been  acknowledged,  but  disputed  and  resisted  ; 
whereas  by  the  convention  it  was  secured  "to  us— a  circumstance  which, 
though  no  new  right,  was  a  new  advantage."  Not  a  word  of  a  "new 
right"  to  estabhsh  colonies  in  America,  or  of  a  "  new  advantage"  in  the 
exclusion  of  territorial  sovereignty  previously  claimed  by  Spain.  On  the 
contrary,  Mr.  (now  Earl)  Grey  well  argued,  that  the  "  settlements"  of  the 
third  article  amounted  to  nothing,  since  access  was  everywhere  left  to 
both  the  parties ;  and  if  England  made  a  settlement  in  a  valley,  Spain 
might  erect  a  fort  on  the  hill  overlooking  it ;  which  conclusively  shows 
that  the  right  of  colonization  was  never  in  the  contemplation  of  the  treaty. 
And  Mr.  Fox  argued  the  same  point  at  great  length,  and  with  great  force ; 
demonstniting  that,  before  the  treaty,  England  might  colonize  in  the  Pa- 
cific; but  that  now  she  could  only  settle,  (as  the  phrase  is  in  the  third  article,) 
or  build  huts,  (as  restricted  in  the  sixth,)  for  the  sole  purpose  of  the  fisheries, 
excluding  colonization.  (Pari.  Hist.  vol.  xxviii.)  Add  to  which,  it  is  only 
as  a  commercial  treaty  that  this  convention  can,  upon  the  principles  con- 
tended for  by  Great  Britain  in  other  great  controversies,  be  considered  in 
force ;  for  such  treaties  only  were  renewed  by  the  treaty  between  Spain  and 
Great  Britain  of  July,  1814. 

In  fact,  the  Nootka  convention  is  obviously  impossible  to  execute,  if 
the  word  "  settlements"  is  to  include  colonies,  or  carry  after  it  any  title  of  do- 
minion ;  because  the  express  language  permits  promiscuous  and  intermixed 
settlements  everywhere,  and  over  the  whole  face  of  the  country,  to  the 
subjects  of  both  parties ;  and  even  declares  every  such  settlement,  made 
by  either  party,  common  to  the  other.  Or  if,  as  England  contends,  the 
convention  is  but  a  recognition  of  the  general  rights  of  all  nations,  then 
it  admits  of  such  promiscuous  settlements  by  all  nations ;  which  is  wholly 
incompatible  with  any  idea  of  sovereignty,  but  applies  well  enough  to 
"  huts  and  other  temporary  buildings"  for  the  fisheries. 

In  this  view  of  the  subject,  the  United  States  further  say,  that,  under 
the  convention,  the  sovereignty  is  not  in  abeyance  ;  it  remains  unchanged  ; 
it  is  left  untouched ;  temporary  commercial  rights  only  are,  for  the  time 
being,  regulated  ;  that  the  question  of  sovereignty  stands  upon  its  former 
footing  ;  "that,  when  it  comes  up,  the  parties  are  remitted  to  their  pre-exist- 
ing rights ;  and  that  before  the  convention,  and  notwithstanding  its  pro- 
visions, the  right  of  sovereignly  appertained  to  Spain  as  against  Great 
Britain ;  or,  in  the  words  of  the  Count  of  Fernan  Nunez,  "  By  the  trea- 
ties, demarcations,  takings  of  possession,  and  the  most  decided  acts  of  sove- 
reignty exercised  by  the  Spaniards,  *  *  *  all  the  coast  to  the  north 
of  western  America,  on  the  side  of  the  South  sea,  as  far  as  beyond  what  is 
called  Prince  William's  sound,  *  *  is  acknowledged  to  belong  exclu- 
sively to  Spain."  {Letter  of  June  16,  1790.)  And  the  United  States  will 
not  be  debarred  from  the  exercise  of  the  just  rights  she  derives  from  Spain, 
when  there  is  nothing  set  up  against  her  but  new  and  monstrous  construc- 
tions of  a  treaty  extorted  from  Spain  by  what  Lord  Porchester  justly  called 
"  unprovoked  bullying,"  and  founded  not  in  right,  but  in  power.  {North 
Am,  Rev.,  vol.  xxvii.) 

The  committee  proceed  to  the  French  title: 

When  Louisiana  was  acquired  by  the  United  States,  it  was  well  known, 
as  already  suggested,  that  the  limits  were  not  well  defined.  Indeed,  they 
were  defined  on  neither  side,  except  along  the  Mississippi.    The  northern 


16 


Rep.  No.  308. 


line,  by  the  British  possessions,  was  fixed  in  1818.  The  southeastern  and 
southwestern  was  fixed  by  the  Florida  treaty;  and  the  question  remains, 
how  far  does  it  extend  west  ?  This  was  at  the  time  considered  a  question 
with  Spain  alone.  Don  Pedro  Cevallos  says :  "  From  this  point,  (the  in- 
tersection of  the  Red  river,)  the  limits  which  ought  to  be  establisljed  on  the 
northern  side  are  doubtful  and  little  known."  {Letter  of  April  13,  18(15.) 
And,  in  the  negotiation  of  the  Florida  treaty,  Don  Luis  de  Onis  udmiited 
the  same  thing,  though  he  affirmed  the  Spanish  title  on  the  Pacific.  But, 
as  between  France  and  Great  Britain,  or  Great  Britain  and  the  United 
States,  the  successor  o'f  all  the  rights  of  France,  the  question  would  seem 
to  be  concluded  by  the  treaty  of  Versailles,  already  cited,  in  which  Great 
Britain  relinquishes  irrevocably  all  pretensions  west  of  the  Mississippi.  On 
the  footing  of  the  treaty  of  Utrecht,  ratified  by  our  convention  of  1818, 
England  mciy,  possibly,  by  extension  of  contiguity,  carry  her  possessions 
from  Hudson's  bay  across  to  the  Pacific,  north  of  latitude  49°;  but,  by  the 
treaty  of  Versailles,  we  possess  the  same  right,  and  an  exclusive  one,  to 
carry  our  territory  across  the  continent  south  of  that  line,  in  the  right  of 
France. 

It  has  been  objected,  that,  in  the  grant  of  Louisiana  to  Crozat  by  Louis 
XIV,  that  province  is  confined  to  the  country  drained  by  the  waters  emp- 
tying in  the  Mississippi — excluding,  by  implication,  any  other  country.  But 
Crozut's  grant  did  not  cover  the  whole  of  Louisiana  as  it  was  when  ceded 
to  the  United  States.  Crozat's  grant  was  understood  as  extending  no 
farther  north  than  latitude  42°;  the  French  possessions  north  of  that  paral- 
lel being  a  part  of  New  France,  or  Canada.  And  New  Prance,  as  pro- 
jected in  the  most  authentic  maps,  did  extend  to  territory  drained,  or  sup- 
posed to  be  drained,  by  rivers  flowing  into  the  Pacific.  In  1717  Louis 
enlarged  Louisiana,  by  adding  thereto  the  country  in  the  latitude  of  the 
Illinois.  And  this  extended  dimension  of  Louisiana  has  been  tacitly  ad- 
mitted by  Great  Britain,  who,  while  herself  possessed  of  Canada,  obtained 
from  France,  and  of  the  Hudson's  bay  country,  has,  by  treaty  with  us,  ad- 
mitted that  the  northern  limit  of  Louisiana  goes  up  to  latitude  49° ;  she 
having  already,  by  the  treaty  of  Versailles,  debarred  herself  of  all  claim 
#outh  of  that  line,  and  west  of  the  Mississippi. 

The  American  title  remains  to  be  considered  on  its  particular  merits. 

Anterior  to  the  Louisiana  treaty,  our  claim  rested  on  Gray's  explora- 
tion of  the  river  Columbia,  the  permanent  record  of  which  subsists  in  the 
name  itself;  it  being  one  of  the  applications  of  the  rule  of  prior  discovery, 
that  the  exploration  of  a  river  gave  rights  to  the  country  watered  by  that 
river, — as  exemplified  in  the  claim  of  the  Mississippi  valley  by  France,  on 
the  ground  of  the  original  exploration  of  the  river  by  her  subjects ;  and 
some  such  principle  being  necessary  to  give  integrity  and  unity  of  posses- 
sion to  any  one  power,  and  to  prevent  the  intermixture  of  possessions  in 
a  territory  having  a  natural  completeness  of  its  own.  The  defects  of  this 
claim  consisted  of  the  counter-pretensions  of  France  as  the  possessor  of 
Louisiana,  and  of  Spain  as  the  possessor  of  Mexico,  and  as  the  first  vis- 
iter of  the  Columbia  and  the  coast  generally.  By  the  conclusion  of  the 
Louisiana  treaty  and  the  Florida  treaty,  these  defects  were  cured.  To 
which  had  then  been  added  the  further  claims  of  the  United  Slates  in  their 
own  rivht,  or  their  title  proper,  by  reason  of  Lewis  and  Clark's  expedition, 
and  Mr,  Astor's  establishment  of  Astoria,  recognised  by  Great  Britain  as 
constituting  posse^^sion,  and  also  right  of  continued  possession,  until  the 


Rep.  No.  308. 


17 


to 


she 


title  should  be  definitively  adjusted.  Though  these  several  claims  con- 
flicted  with  each  other  originally,  they  acquired  mutual  stfength  in  the  same 
hands;  as  if  three  persons  claim  the  same  estote — one  by  deed  or  devise, 
another  by  inheritance,  and  a  third  by  possession — the  union  of  all  in  one 
person,  by  purchase  or  otherwise,  would  result  in  the  best  of  titles.  Thus 
much,  trecting  it  as  a  dominion  founded  on  discovery  and  exploration,  and 
partial  occupation. 

But,  in  another  point  of  view,  this  combination  of  titles  becomes  yet  more 
important.  Having  planted  her  foot  on  the  shore  of  Hudson's  bay,  Great 
Britain  claims,  against  all  the  world,  that  she  may  stretch  the  other  to  the 
Rocky  mountains ;  and  the  claim  is  admitted  by  the  rest  of  the  world. 
Nay,  It  is  from  Hudson's  bay  that  her  establishments  have  extended  across 
the  continent.  Sir  Alexander  Mackenzie  led  the  way  in  1793,  and  the 
Northwest  Company  and  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  followed  in  it,  until 
they  had  gradually  intruded  themselves  into  tlie  valley  of  the  Columbia — 
not  from  the  Pacific,  but  proceeding  from  the  Atlantic;  and  the  civil  juris- 
diction of  the  British  subjects  dwelling  beyond  the  Rocky  mountains  de- 
pends tni.  day  in  the  courts  of  Upper  Canada,  by  the  acts  of  Parliament  of 
43  Geo.  HI,  eh.  131;  and  1  and  2  Geo.  IV,  eh.  60.  Which  is  in  conformity 
with  the  fact  hereinbefore  stated,  that,  prior  to  the  treaty  of  Versailles',  the 
English  Government  claimed  and  granted  to  the  Pacific,  by  virtue  of  her 
possessions  in  New  England  and  Virginia. 

And  a  pretension  of  this'nature,  however  extravagant  it  may  seem  at  the 
first  blush,  grows  out  of  the  necessities  of  self-preservation.  Great  Britain, 
when  she  gained  a  lodgment  on  the  coast  of  the  Atlantic,  readily  saw,  and 
her  colonies  soon  learned  by  disastrous  experience,  how  dangerous  it  would 
bo  to  them  to  have  a  hostile  foreign  power  establish  itself  behind  them. 
For  the  same  reason  that  it  was  important  to  the  British  colonies  to  exclude, 
if  they  might,  any  power  from  taking  possession  in  their  rear,  it  was  im- 
portant to  the  French  colonies  on  the  Mississippi  to  prevent  any  other 
power  from  establishing  itself  in  their  own  rear.  Hence  they  claimed  (and 
rightfully,  according  to  the  received  law  of  nations)  to  have  the  exclusive 
dominion,  and  the  right  of  excludnig  the  entrance  of  any  foreign  coloniza- 
tion westward  of  them,  until  they  shonid  reach  some  other  European  power 
having  a  better  title  than  theirs ;  and  west  of  them  there  was  none  such, 
except  Spain. 

And  the  precise  extent  of  prolongation  by  contiguity,  to  which  an  actual 
settlement  gives  right,  must  have  some  relation  to  the  magnitude  and  popu- 
lation of  that  settlement,  and  to  the  facility  with  which  adjoining  vacant 
lands  may  promise  to  be  occupied  and  cultivated  by  such  a  population,  as 
compared  with  any  to  come  from  elsewhere ;  and  this,  in  addition  to  the 
considerations  of  national  security. 

Important  as  these  principles  were  to  the  infant  colonies  of  France  and 
Britain,  and  strong  as  are  the  claims  of  this  nature  we  derive  from  the 
treaties  of  those  two  powers,  those  principles  are  yet  more  important,  and 
those  claims  stronger,  in  reference  to  the  existing  state  of  North  America, 
and  our  own  position  as  the  leading  power  of  this  continent.  Who  shall 
undertake  to  define  the  limits  of  the  expansibility  of  the  population  of  the 
United  States?  Does  it  not  now  flow  westward  with  the  never  ceasing 
advance  of  a  rising  tide  of  the  sea  I  Along  a  line  of  more  than  a  thousand 
miles  from  the  Ltikes  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  perpetually  moves  forward 
the  western  frontier  of  the  United  States.  Here,  stretched  along  the  whole 
2 


18 


Rep.  No.  308. 


length  of  this  line,  is  the  vongiinrd,  ns  it  were,  of  the  onward  marcli  of  the 
Anglo-American  race,  advancing,  it  has  been  calculated,  at  the  average 
rate  of  abont  huU  a  degree  of  longitude  each  succei  ding  year.  Occnsion- 
ally,  an  obstacle  presents  itself  in  some  nnproductive  region  of"  country,  or 
some  Indian  tribe  ;  the  column  is  checK'f;d  ;  its  wings  incline  towards  each 
other;  it  breaks;  but  it  speedily  reunites  again  beyond  tlie  obstacle,  and 
resumes  its  forward  |)rogress,  ever  facing,  Jind  anproat-liiiig  iit-nrer  nnd 
nearer  to,  the  remotest  regions  of  the  west.  This  movement  goes  on  with 
the  predestined  certainty  and  the  unerring  precision  Oi'  the  great  works  of 
eternal  Providence,  rather  tlian  as  an  act  of  (eel)lo  man.  Anoilier  genera- 
tion may  see  the  settlements  of  our  people  diflused  over  the  Pacihe  slope  of 
the  Rocky  mnuntains.  It  is  idle  to  suppose  any  new  colony  to  i.e  sent  out 
from  Great  Britain  will  or  can  establish  itself  in  the  far  we.st,  niiinjutely  to 
stand  in  competition  with  this  j;reat  movement  of  the  populiition  nnd  power 
of  the  United  States.  Nor  should  any  attempt  at  such  competition  be 
countenanced  by  ns.  For  if  the  .safely  of  tlje  I',  vr  lliunsnnds  of  British 
settlers  on  the  Atlantic,  or  of  French  settlers  on  the  Mis^issi;  pi,  required 
the  extension  of  their  exxlnsive  sovereignly  to  a  cerlaiu  (Ji;gree  west,  how 
far  shall  that  extension  not  be  demanded  lor  the  Si.fs^iy  of  the  millions  of 
the  United  States,  who  already  occupy  ni  hill  and  liiidisputed  sovereignty^ 
and  overspread  with  their  teeming  jjopulatinn,  and  unite  in  the  bonds  of 
one  grea!  and  glorious  jiolitical  society,  the  whole  of  tne  vast  valley  of  tho 
Mississippi  and  the  Missouri .' 

At  a  contingency  the  most  delicate  in  the  affairs  of  this  continent,  Mr, 
Monroe  issued  his  celebrated  declaration,  that  while  the  United  States  con- 
tinued neutral  and  impartial  in  the  contests  of  the  European  powers  among 
themselves,  it  was  otherwise  in  regard  to  their  iuov(niu'Ut.s  in  tins  hemi- 
sphere; that  the  United  States  would  conssider  an  aitenipt  on  their  part  to 
extend  their  peculiar  political  systems  to  any  part  of  the  Mew  World  as 
dangerous  to  our  peace  and  safety  ;  and  that  wo  conid  not  view  a  voluntary 
interposition  of  theirs  in  the  affairs  of  the  new  npnl'lios  of  America  with 
indifierence,  or  in  any  other  light  than  as  the  nianilet>iation  of  an  unfriendly 
disposition  towards  the  United  States.     {M(iss(t;jc,  Diaiitbir  2,  Ib'i^.) 

This  declaration,  it  is  well  known,  had  the  most  imporlunt  immediate 
effects  at  the  time  of  its  uttertmce,  when  certain  of  tiie  liHropeaij  powers 
contemplated  a  forcible  interference  in  the  affairs  of  tiie  Siianish  colonies 
in, America.  It  has  deservedly  come  to  be  regarded  as  an  essential  compo- 
nent part  of  the  international  law  of  the  New  World.  (  ]V/ica(ou.s  Jntcr. 
LaWfP.  SS.j  And  great  as  the  force  of  it  is,  wlsen  api'Hcd  to  the  precise 
case  which  called  for  it,  still  greater  is  it  when  considi.Med  in  its  appliration 
to  the  case  of  an  attempt  on  the  part  of  any  l:^nrf'i;e,!n  power  to  found  new 
colonies  in  North  America  in  parts  not  yet  occnpi(-d.  It  has  been  the 
happy  fortune  of  the  United  States  to  free  itselt,  by  the  piuchase  of  Loui- 
siana and  Florida,  from  the  presence  of  Enropenn  coloiiics  on  our  southern 
.and  western  frontiers.  The  possessions  of  Great  Britain  now  ovcriiang  the 
-Udjited  States  along  their  vast  northern  frontier  from  tlie  Atlantic  to  the 
Pacific.  South  of  that  line,  the  whole  continent,  from  the  great  lakes  to 
the  Isthmus  of  Darien,  is  occupied  by  Americnns,  by  diildron  of  the  soil, 
by  governments  independent  of  Europe.  And  it  is  d;io  iilikc  to  our  high- 
est interests  and  to  our  honor  to  have  it  universally  understood,  that  neither 
Great  Brilaih;,  nor  any  other  Eluropean  power,  is  any  longer  to  consider  the 
unsettled  parts  of  the  continent,  adjoining  the  settlements  of  tlie  United  States, 


jar^-' 


Rep.  No.  308. 


It 


diale 
)\vers 
oiii(.'S 
oinpo- 
Jnlcr. 
H'coisn 
at  ion 
now 
n  the 
l.oni- 
thorii 


res  to 
e  soil, 
hijjh- 
utlier 
n-  the 
tales, 


in  the  nature  of  unoccupied  lands  for  the  reception  of  European  colonies.  If 
Great  Britain  had  any  pretext  to  claim  the  Territory  of  Oregon  as  a  part  of  her 
possessions  on  the  hvkes,  of  her  existing  colonies,  it  would  be  otherwise. 
But  she  does  not.  She  distinctly  puts  her  claim  to  Oregon  on  the  ground 
that  it  is  unoccupied  territory,  just  like  Virginia  or  Massachusetts  before  she 
colonized  thorn ;  and  that,  ns  unoccupied  savage  territory,  she  may  now  col- 
onize the  Columbia  river  ; — not  that  it  is  part  of  a  colony  now  possessed  by 
her,  but  country  in  which  she  has  the  right  at  this  day  to  found  a  nevr 
colony. 

"Qreat  Britain  considered  the  whole  of  the  unoccupied  parts  of  America  as  being  open  U> 
her  luiure  scttlenierits,  as  heretofore.  They  included  within  these  parts,  as  well  that  portion  of 
the  northwest  coast  lying  between  the  4'2d  and  51st  degrees  of  latitude,  as  any  other  parts.  The 
principle  of  coloni/aiion  on  that  coast,  or  elsewhere,  on  any  portions  of  those  continents  not 
yet  occupied,  Great  Britain  was  not  prepared  to  relinquish."— A^r.  Rush's  letter,  August  19, 

This  pretension  the  committee  deem  to  be  inadmissible,  and  prejudicial 
to  the  rights,  the  security,  and  the  peace  of  the  United  States. 

There  is  a  class  of  reasons  applicable  to  this  point,  which  is  everyday  ac- 
quiring more  and  more  force.  It  is  the  situation  of  the  Indians  in  the  inte- 
rior of  the  continent.  It  has  at  all  times  been  the  policy  of  Great  Britain 
— a  policy  litrie  in  keeping  with  her  ostentation  of  humanity  in  regard  to 
the  black  race — to  keep  the  red  men  under  subsidy  to  her,  so  as  to  have 
them  always  ready  to  bring  into  the  field  against  the  United  States.  At 
the  epoch  of  the  Uevoliition,we  proposed  that  the  Indians  should  besuflfered 
to  remain  neutral ;  but  England  refused.  She  has  kept  them  under  arms, 
or  in  a  semi-hostile  state,  against  us,  more  or  less  constantly,  from  that  day 
to  this.  Our  commissioners  at  Ghent  proposed  an  agreemnnt  for  the  per- 
petual neutrality  of  the  Indians ;  but  England  again  refused  it.  The  per- 
severance of  Great  Britain  in  this  policy  has  been  deplorably  injurious  to 
us;  and  its  effects  are  written  with  the  scalping  knife  and  the  brand  of  the 
Indian,  in  letters  of  blood  and  fire,  in  the  history  of  the  southern  and  west- 
ern States.  And  this,  the  unholy  policy  of  Great  Britain  in  regard  to  the 
Indians,  has  done  more  than  any  tind  every  other  ca'ise  united,  to  waste,  de- 
grade, and  Darbarizc  tlieni,  so  as  to  render  them  a  curse  alike  to  us  and  to 
themselves.  By  the  acquisition  of  Florida,  the  influence  of  the  British 
over  the  Indians  of  the  United  States  was  shut  out  from  the  south  ;  but 
it  still  o|)eratcs  unclieclved,  and  is  fostered  and  kept  alive,  by  regular  Gov- 
ernment subsidies  in  the  northwest  ;  and  is  e.xerted  without  any  counter- 
action among  the  Inriiuns  of  the  remote  west,  and  will  continue  to  be  ex- 
erted, in  all  rt;si)^;cts  to  our  loss  and  injiny,  until  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company 
is  expelled  from  the  territory  of  Oregon,  and  it  is  possessed  in  full  and  indis- 
puted  sovercMgiity  by  the  Uniied  States. 

In  conclusion  of  this  branch  of  their  instructions,  it  only  remains  for, 
the  committee  to  advert  to  certain  particular  facts  in  the  present  political  re- 
lations of  the  territory  of  Oregon,  confirmatory  of,  and  connected  with,  the 
general  considerations  they  have  suggested. 

Great  Britain  had  very  much  distinguished  herself  at  an  early  period, 
by  voyages  of  discovery  in  the  seas  to  the  northeast  of  this  continent. 
Thus  it  happened  that  she  acquired  territorial  rights  on  the  shores  of  Hud- 
son's bay,  which  at  the  congres  f  Utrecht  were  formally  acknowledged 
by  France,  as  before  stated.  "The  extent  of  this  territory  was  not  then,  nor' 
until  long  afterwards,  definitively  settled.  Meanwhile,  among  the  corrupt 
monopolies  of  the  reign  of  Charles  II,  was  the  grant  of  a  charter  to  the 


a 


20 


Rep.  No.  308. 


»!  '■ 


"Adventurers  of  the  Hudson's  B:iy  Company."  Their  declared  and  prop- 
er objects  were,  of  course,  naviuatioii,  and  trade  in  the  furs,  fish,  or  other 
producti.)7]s  of  Hudson's  bay.  L\i'plorution  was,  indeed,  one  of  the  bene- 
fits anticipated  from  the  company  ;  but  the  company  itself  proved,  for  more 
than  a  century,  to  bo  the  great  obstacle  to  exploration  ;  or.  In  the  emphatic 
language  of  ihe  London  Quarterly  Review,  (a  competent  witness  on  such  a 
point,)  "From  the  moment  this  budy  of  'adventurers'  was  instituted,  the 
spirit  of  'adventure'  died  away;  and  every  succeedinff  clfurl  was  palsied 
by  the  baneful  influpnce  of  a  monopoly,  of  which  the  discovery  of  a  north- 
west passage  wos  deemed  the  forerunner  of  destruction."  This  company 
is  to  America,  precisely  what  the  East  India  Company  is  to  Asia.  It  has 
been  sullercd  to  extend  its  power  from  Labrador  5outhwestwardly  to  Lake 
Superior,  thence  along  the  lii^ne  dts  versants  of  the  Mississippi  and  the 
Missouri,  and  so  sweeping  around  by  the  base  of  tlie  Rocky  mountains  to 
the  Slave  Lake,  and  thence  back  to  the  extreme  northeastern  shores  of  the 
Atlantic.  A  gbinco  at  the  map  will  show  the  vast  extent  of  these  imperial 
dominions.  (Jjouchc/tc'a  lir.  Dom.  vol..  \,  p. '32.)  When,  by  the  aid  of 
the  Anglo- American  provinces.  Great  Britain  had  subdued  Canada,  this  did 
not  become  incf»rporated  with  the  possessions  of  the  Hudson's  Ray  (>om- 
pany.  On  the  contrary,  when  the  independence  of  the  United  .States  gave 
rise  to  new  relations  m  the  northwest,  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  was 
placed  by  Britain  on  the  footing  of  an  independent  power;  and  in  regula- 
ting the  rights  of  mutual  transit  in  that  quarter.  Jay's  treaty  contains  this 
clause:  "the  country  within  the  limits  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  only 
excepted."  That  is  to  say,  when  the  territorial  or  commercial  rights  of  the 
United  Slates  are  to  be  restricted,  the  Hudson's  Bay  company  is  put  for- 
ward as  an  independent  foreign  state.  So  also  is  it  when  there  is  opportu- 
nity or  occasion  to  extend  British  rights  in  competition  with  ours ;  as  in 
dealings  with  the  Indians  it  has  repeatedly  happened,  where  the  acts  of  the 
company  have  at  all  times  been  greatly  injurious  to  the  United  States.  Bnt, 
on  the  contrary,  if  the  United  Slates,  or  any  other  power,  seeks  to  repress 
the  pretensions  of  the  company,  it  is  no  longer  left  by  Great  Britain  to 
stand  on  its  own  bottom  as  a  political  community,  but  is  taken  under  the 
wing  of  the  British  Government.  This,  indeed,  we  know  is  the  precise 
mode  in  which  the  East  India  (company  has  been  made  the  instrument  of 
conquering  the  hundred  millions  of  Hindostan. 

After  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  had,  for  a  length  of  time,  lorded  if  in 
sole  supremacy  over  the  Indians  of  the  extensive  region  claimed  by  it, 
there  sprung  up  a  competitor  of  its  profitable  fur  trade,  in  the  Northwest 
Company  of  Montreal.  These  two  companies  did  not  scruple  to  engage  in 
continual  feuds,  growing  out  of  jealousies  of  trade,  and  mutual  complaints 
of  violated  privileges;  nay,  they  actually  waged  hostilities  one  against  the 
other,  in  the  guise  of  sovereign  States — rendering  the  interior  of  the  conti- 
nent a  scene  of  rapine,  outrage,  and  bloodshed.    {Earl  of  Selkirk,  Claims^ 

These  empire-companies,  and  their  traders,  trappers,  and  agents,  have 
been  the  immediate  instruments  of  much  of  that  perpetual  intermeddling 
of  Great  Britain  with  the  Indians  of  the  United  States,  which,  from  1775 
to  the  present  day,  has  never  ceased  to  be  practised  to  our  injury ;  and  the 
fruits  of  which  were  seen  in  every  one  of  the  disasters  of  the  west  and 
northwest,  from  the  massacres  of  Wyooaing  andK^herry  Valley,  and  the  de- 


Rep.  No.  308. 


21 


feats  of  Hnrmar  and  St.  Clair,  to  the  later  enterprises  of  Tecumseli  mid  of 
Black  Hawk. 

This  hitter  company  (the  Northwest  Company,  so  called)  it  was,  which 
fraudulently  obtained  pos><«ession  of  Astoria  in  1812,  and  hoisted  the  IJritish 
flag  on  the  Columbia.  {Irving^ s  Astoria.)  Its  difl'eronccs  with  the  Hud- 
son's Hay  Company  were  at  length  adjusted.  In  1821  the  two  companies 
became  one— continuing  to  act  under  the  charter  of  the  Hudson's  Bay 
Company;  and,  by  act  of  Parliament,  the  company  received  a  grant  of  civil 
jurisdiction,  which  it  now  exercisps  at  all  its  establishments.  That  is,  the 
Hudson's  Bay  Company  is  the  medium  through  which  Great  Britain  exer- 
cises exclusive  civil  jurisdiction  over  all  the  territory  of  Oregon,  in  which 
it  is  conceded,  on  all  hnnds,  our  rights  are  at  least  eci'ual  to  hers.  Nor  civil 
jurisdiction  only.  It  is  known  by  the  official  report  of  Mr.  Slacum,  who 
recently  visited  the  territory  in  behalf'  of  the  United  States,  that  the  com- 
pany has,  in  addition  to  a  number  of  minor  factories,  one  at  Vancouver,  on 
the  Columbia,  which  is  in  all  respects  a  military  post,  though,  like  the  so. 
poys  and  other  troops  of  Hindostun,  the  garrison  consists  of  the.  servants 
of  the  company — not  of  oITicers  and  men  bearing  the  Queen's  commission. 
Of  other  establishments  of  thecompany,  (which  are  in  name,  as  in  fact,  forts,) 
there  are  known  to  be  Fort  Uniqua,  on  the  Umqua ;  Fort  George,  Fort 
Nez  Percys,  Fort  Okanagan,  Fort  Colville,  and  Koolante  fort;  besides  Fort 
Vancouver,  on  the  Columbia,  or  its-  branches ;  and  Fort  Nasqually,  south  of 
the  strait  of  Juan  de  Fuca. 

To  prove  these  general  facts,  and  also  to  show  the  effect  of  them,  a  few 
authentic  statements  follow,  from  persons  of  approved  authority. 

The  President's  message,  of  the  23d  of  December,  1837,  contains  this 
information : 

"The  Hudson's  Bay  Company  have  also  several  depots,  situated  on  water-courses,  in  the  in- 
terio'  of  the  country;  the  principal  one  is  atFoit  Vancouver,  on  the  northern  bank  of  the  Co- 
lumbia river,  about  eighty  or  one  hundred  miles  from  its  mouth.  It  is  known,  by  information 
recently  obtained,  that  the  English  company  have  a  steamboat  on  this  river,  and  that  they  have 
a  »aw-mill,  and  are  cutting  timl)er  on  the  territory  claimed  by  the  United  States,  and  are  ship- 
ping ii  inconsiderable  quantities  to  the  Sandwich  islands." 

Mr.  Cambreleng,  in  a  letter  to  Mr.  Bentca  of  the  12th  January,  1829, 
says: 

"  I  have  in  my  possession  the  actual  returns  of  the  furs  collected  by  the  Hudson's  Bay  Com- 

f>any  for  the  year  1828,  which,  according  to  a  valuation  made  by  one  who  has  a  thorough  know- 
edge  of  the  trade,  amount  to  $891,879  85.  The  shares  of  thai  company  have  increased  from 
£60,  or  40  per  cent,  below  par,  to  £240  .>^terling,  or  140  per  cent,  above  par.  The  business  ot  the 
company  has  continued  to  increase  at  the  rate  of  from  StiO.OOJ  to  Sl00,000  annually.  The  pros, 
perous  condition  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  may  be  attributed,  in  some  measure,  to  the  ad- 
vantages enjoyed  by  the  British  traders,  who  procure  their  manufactures  without  duty,  while 
the  Am  rican  traders  pay  40  per  cent,  and  upwards ;  and  who  can  send  their  furs  to  the  Amer- 
ican market,  while  our  traders  pay  a  di;ty  in  the  British  market.  But  the  most  important  ad- 
vantage enjoyed  by  the  Hudson  s  Bay  Company,  is  the  admirable  harbor  at  the  mouth  of  the 
Columbia,  which  we  virtually  and  unfortunately  granted  them  by  our  treaty  of  1818.  That 
settlement  at  the  mouth  of  the  Columbia  river  is  now  the  centre  of  an  immense  trade  in  furs, 
and,  unless  we  take  some  steps  to  place  our  traders  on  an  equal  footing  with  the  British,  and  se- 
cure to  the  former  the  privilege  of  trading  in  safety  within  our  own  dominions  at  least,  our 
Indian  trade  must  decline,  and  we  must  make  up  our  minds  to  surrender  the  whole  Indian 
country  to  Great  Britain."— Sen.  Doc.  l828-'29,  No.  67. 

Mr.  Irving  says : 

"ThoBgh  the  [Hudson'.<i  Bay]  Company,  by  treaty,  have  a  right  to  a  participation  only  in  the 
titide  of  tnese  regions,  [beyond  the  Rocky  mountains,]  and  are,  in  fact,  but  tenants  in  suffer- 
ance ;  yet  have  they  quietly  availed  themselves  of  the  original  overNight,  and  subsequent  su- 
pineness  of  tbe  Americaa  Goverameat,  to  establish  a  monopoly  of  the  trade  of  the  river  [Co- 


22 


Rep.  No.  308. 


lunobia]  and  its  dependencies  ;  and  are  adroitly  proceeding  lo  (orlify  themvelves  in  ikeir  U8arpa> 
lion,  by  securing  all  i\\e  .strong  points  of  the  countiy. 

"  Nor  is  it  lilcelyihe  latter  [\he  >\merican  traders]  will  ever  be  able  toniaintain  any  foollDgia 
the  land,  until  the  qiit-stion  ot  terriloriHl  right  is  adjusted  between  the  two  countries.  The  soon- 
er that  takes  place,  the  better.  It  is  a  question  loo  serious  to  nationnl  pride,  it'  not  to  national 
interest,  to  be  slurred  over;  and  every  year  is  lidding  to  the  difllculiics  which  environ  it. 

"  I  he  resources  of  the  country  •  ♦  in  the  hunJs  of  America,  oitioying  a  direct  trade  with 
the  East  Indies,  would  be  brought  into  quickening  activity,  and  might  soon  realize  the  dream 
ol  Mr.  Astor,  in  giving  rise  to  a  flourishing  commercial  empire."— /foely  AJountains,vol  2. 

The  plntis  of  Grcnt  Britain  in  respect  to  this  country  are  shadowed  forth 
by  Sir  Alexander  Mackenzie  as  follows: 

"  But,  whatever  course  may  be  taken  from  the  Atlantic,  the  Columbia  is  the  line  of  commo- 
nicaticm  from  the  Pacific  ocean  pointed  out  by  natuie,  as  it  is  the  only  navigable  river  in  the 
whole  extent  of  Vancouver's  minute  survey  of  that  coast.  Its  banks,  also,  form  the  first  level 
country  in  all  the  southern  extent  of  continental  coast  (rum  Cook's  entry,  and,  consequently, 
the  must  northern  situation  fit  ibr  colonization,  and  suitable  for  the  residence  of  a  civilized  peo* 
pie.  By  opening  this  intercourse  between  the  Atlantic  and  Pacific  oceans  and  forming  reg- 
ular esiiiblishiu^iiis  through  the  interior,  and  at  both  extremes,  as  well  as  alon;;  the  coasts  and 
islands,  the  entirecuminand  of  the  fur  trade  of  North  America  might  be  obiained  from  latitude 
48  degiees  north  to  the  pole— except  tlmi  portion  of  it  which  the  Russians  have  in  the  Pacific. 
To  this  may  be  added  the  fishery  in  both  sCiis,  and  the  markets  of  the  four  quarters  ol  the  globe. 
Such  would  be  the  field  for  commercial  enterprise;  and  incalculable  would  be  the  produce  of 
it,  when  supported  by  the  operations  of  that  credit  and  capital  which  Great  Biitain  so  pre-emi- 
nently possesses." —  Travels,  vol.  2. 

To  which  the  same  writer  adds,  that  the  effect  of  the  development  of 
those  plans  would  be  the  complete  exclusion  of  Americans  from  the  conn- 
try,  and  the  most  important  political  as  well  us  commerciol  advantages  to 
llie  United  Kingdom. 

The  committee  .will  have  occasion  to  submit  to  the  House  additional  in- 
formation on  these  points,  when  they  dispose  of  that  part  of  their  instruc- 
tions  which  refers  to  the  statistical  condition  and  political  value  of  the 
country  of  Oregon.  It  is  suflicient  for  the  immediate  purpose  to  have  de- 
monstrated that  the  plan  of  the  British  to  put  an  end  to  American  enter- 
prise in  the  valley  of  the  Columbia  has  succeeded. 

Still,  this  object  has  been  accomplished  under  the  shelterof  a  convention, 
which  provides  that  the  country  of  Oregon,  together  with  its  harbors,  bays, 
and  creeks,  and  the  navigation  of  all  rivers  within  the  same,  shall,  for  the 
time  being,  be  free  and  open  to  the  vessels,  citizens,  and  subjects  o{  the  two 
powers ;  and  which  thus  professes  to  give  equal  present  advantages  to  the  peo- 
ple of  each  nation,  and  to  prejudge  the  ultimate  rights  of  neither.  But  the 
practical  effect  of  the  convention  is  the  reverse,  in  that  nearly  all  the  pres- 
ent advantages  arc  enjoyed  by  England,  and  the  ultimate  rights  ol  the 
United  Stales  are  seriously  etidangered. 

This  arises  from  the  peculiar  oroanizution  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company, 
which  now  in  fact  rules  over  the  whole  country,  and  has  exclusive  posses- 
sion of  its  trade — just  as  completely  as  the  East  India  Company  in  Hin- 
dostan  at  the  period  of  its  early  conquests  there,  wlien  it  was  a  close  corpo- 
ration, and  independent  of  the  control  of  the  King's  ministers.  Individual 
traders,  and  ordinary  commercial  companies,  caimot  stand  against  it.  They 
cannot  compete  in  resources  with  this  great  empire-corporation.  Besides 
which,  a  powerful  incorporated  company  like  this,  having  exclusive  priv- 
ileges of  trade  by  charter,  and  those  privileges  conveying  territory  its  ap- 
purtenant to  trade — a  monster  and  an  anomaly  in  its  nature  as  it  is, — such 
B  company  is  in  itself,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  a  territorial  government. 
It  has  all  the  civil  and  all  the  military  machinery  of  government.  Nay^ 
more.    The  acts  oi  Parliament  already  referred  to  give  to  the  courts  of 


Rep.  No.  308. 


23 


Upper  Canudn  tlic  simio  civil  jurisdiction,  in  nil  rcspccls,  within  tho  pnrta 
of  Amorica  not  within  thn  hrnils  of  I.nwer  or  Upptir  ('anad«,  nor  of  nny 
civil  govorntnentol'lhc  United  Stales,  as  tlu-y  havi;  widiin  Ihu  litniis  of  Up- 
per Canada.  Mnglund  may  appoint  justices  oC  thn  poace,  or  constiintL'  other 
inferior  courts  in  those  purls.  Tlicrn  is  no  provision  in  tljt?  act  to  except 
citizens  of  the  United  States,  or  country  cluimed  hy  the  UiiitinJ  Slates,  from 
this  jiiribdiction.  Aiu!  these  provisions  arc  precisely  applicable  to  the  conn- 
try  beyond  the  Kocky  moiiiifains,  and  to  thnl  only;  and  there  is  no  other 
part  of  America  to  winch  llii'y  do  apply.  This,  indeed,  is  well  niidersiood 
by  Aineiican  ciliyns  in  ()ri';(f)n  to  he  tlie  fact,  us  tlie  coinmiltre  have  been 
expressly  informed.  Si)  thnl  the  Hudson's  Hay  Company  not  only  monop- 
olizes the  trade  of  Orej^on,  but  may  conirol  the  iiihabilaiilcf,  and  uvfiu  send 
ihcm  to  Upper  (.'unada  to  be  tried  lor  iuiputed  oHiMices, 

The  privileges  of  the  llud.'-on's  Hay  Company  operate  injuriously  in  an- 
other respect.  Ils'ii^'rieMfn  has  shown  iho  neces.^ity  ot  military  fiosls  among 
the  Indians.  'J'he  <'oinpany  accordiii;,Iy  his  its  trreat  post,  and  its  lesser 
forts -all  of  them  nri'i>li  niilitiry  posts  in  fact,  but  with  tlie  p(rii!iiiiity,  that 
its  ll  ig  not  being  the  Uiiccn's  ilng,  the  (iovernmuiit  is  (Mifibled  to  pursue 
the  disingenuous  course  of  claiming  rights  and  l<,;rritoiy  in  virino  of  acts 
performed  by  it,  wliile  in  th(!  same  breath  di.'-avowing  nil  (Government  re- 
sponsibility iltr  tlio.se  acts.  IJnt  the  United  .States  has  no  militiry  post  there. 
It  has  no  giitaiitic  company,  like  that  of  Hudson's  Hay,  to  be  put  forward  to 
act  tite  ambiguous  and  insidious  part  of  a  government,  or  of  private  indi- 
viduals, as  the  policy  of  state  may  rc;iid"r  most  conveniiUt.  U  it  establishes 
u  post,  it  must  do  so  openly  and  aboveboard,  in  its  own  name.  Hut  (his 
Great  Hritaiu  objects  to,  so  that  still  the  mnnop»ly  of  trade  and  of  civil  and 
niilitniy  power  shall  bo  field  by  her  iiuiircctli/,  through  the  means  ol  the 
Hudson  s  Hay  Company. 

The  committee  ar-:  of  (Opinion  that  this  ground  of  distinction  ought  to 
be  no  longer  admil'ed  by  the  United  States.  So  long  as  Great  j?iitain  talces 
to  h(!rself  the  fruits  of  the  operations  of  ihc::(;  efiipire-corporatioiis,  and  so 
long  as  the  millions  ol  sulijccis  tliey  conquer,  and  the  vast,  realms  they  sub- 
due,  are  governed  and  held  for  her  advaiitngo,  she  ought  not  to  bo  permit- 
ted to  set  up  nny  distinction,  in  her  dealings  with  a  foreign  state,  between 
their  acts  and  hers.  So  far  as  regards  the  rights  or  tlu*  safety  «.f  that  for- 
eign state,  a  military  J'ost  e,';ta(;!isii.d  liy  the  lOasf  India  Company,  or  the 
Hudson's  Hay  Company,  is  a  military  post  establisiied  by  (.Jreat  Hritain. 
Not  to  pnceivo  this,  is  to  shut  our  ey<'S  to  the  system  of  operations,  by 
means  of  which  Great  Hritain  has  built  up  the  stupendous  iabric  of  her 
poW(>r  in  the  east  and  th<!  west. 

The  injustice  done  to  tlie  Un:t(?d  States  !)y  the  double  use  which  Great 
Britain  makes  of  flie  Hudso.i's  Hay  Company,  was  strongly  urged  by  Mr, 
Gallatin,  in  his  conferences  witli  the  Hriiisli  ministers  on  the  sn!)ject,  in  182f> 
and  lSi'7.  The  Hritish  mi'iisters  were  not  insensible  to  the  force  of  his 
objections.  And  the  followinir  passage  of  Mr.  Gallatin's  letter  of  nocem- 
ber  20,  1825,  is  important  in  its  bearing  upon  the  question  of  what  legisla- 
tion Congress  may  adopt,  without  infringement  of  the  treaty  relations  of 
the  two  powers : 

"Tl>c  cstr.lilishinent  of  aOi>tiiicl  Territorial  Givcrnment  on  the  west  side  of  ilic  Stony  moun- 
tains wiuiKl  alMi  ir;  nljocicJ  I)  as  an  attempt  t')  exercise  exclusive  .s()Vereic;niy.  I  observed 
tl\at, alt'.uMi^li  tiie  Nonlw/c^t  Coinpaoy  nii^^lit,  i'loiu  its  boinj?  incorpuraieil,  IVuin  ih-  li.il>iis  of 
ttje  men  they  enijiloyeJ,  and  fioiu  having  a  moaopoly  with  ivKptct  to  trade,  sj  f.  r  as  BritisU 


24 


Rep.  No.  308. 


subjects  \yere  concerne.l,  cnrry  on  a  species  of  government,  without  the  assistance  of  that  of 
Great  Briiam,  it  was  otherwise  with  us.  Our  population  there  would  consist  of  several  inde- 
pendent conapanies  and  individuals.  We  had  always  been  in  the  habit,  in  ourinost  remote 
seitleinenis,  of  carryingr  laws,  courts,  and  justices  of  the  peace  with  us.  There  was  an  absolute 
necessity,  on  our  pnrf,  to  have  some  species  of  government.  Without  it,  the  kind  ol  sovereignty 
or  rather  juiisdiciion,  which  it  was  intended  to  admit,  could  not  be  exercised  on  our  part  It 
was  siiirsested,  and  seemed  to  be  acquiesceil  in,  that  the  diliicultv  might  be  obviated,  provided 
the  ereciion  oJ  a  new  Territory  was  not  confined  exclusively  to  the  teiriiory  west  ol  the  moun- 
tains;  that  it  should  be  denned  as  embracing  all  the  possessions  of  the  United  States  west  of  a 
Jint-  that  should  be  at  some  distance  Irom,  and  east  ot,  the  Stony  mountains." 

The  committee  have  reported  their  bill  in  precise  accordance  with  these 
suggestions  of  Mr.  Gallatin,  acquiesced  in,  as  he  informs  us,  by  the  Brit- 
ish ministers  in  1826.  They  have  accompanied  it  only  with  such  sug^cs- 
tions  and  arguments  as  seemed  indispensably  necessary  to  its  support— re- 
taining the  right  hereafter  to  present,  if  they  should  think  it  necessary,  a 
more  full  and  satisfactdry  report  on  all  the  facts  and  considerations  bearing 
on  this  great  and  important  subject. 


: 


c 


\ 


Rep.  No.  oife. 


25 


lat  o( 

inde- 

emote 

?oluie 

n.  It 
vided 
nouQ- 
tot  a 

hesc 
Brit- 

rgCS- 

— re- 
ry,a 
iring 


Yf 


A  BILL  to  extend  the  civil  and  crinunal  jurisdiction  of  the  several  courts  of  the  Territory  of 
Iowa  over  the  Territoiy  of  Oregon,  and  for  other  purposes. 

Be  it  enacted  by  the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives  of  the  United 
States  of  America  in  Congress  assembled,  That  the  President  of  the  Uni- 
ted States  is  hereby  authorized  and  required  to  cause  to  be  erected,  at  suit- 
able places  and  distances,  a  line  ofstoclcade  and  blockhouse  forts,  not  ex- 
ceeding five  in  number,  from  some  point  on  the  Missouri  and  Arkansas 
rivers,  into  the  best  pass  for  enternig  the  valley  of  the  Oregon  ;  and,  also, 
at  or  near  the  mouth  of  the  Columbia  river. 

That  provisions  shall  hereafter  be  made  by  law  to  secure  and  grant 
six  hundred  and  forty  acres,  or  one  section  of  land,  to  each  white  male 
inhabitant  of  the  Territory  of  Oregon,  of  the  age  of  eighteen  years  and 
upwards,  who  may  have  heretofore  or  shall  hereafter  move  from  any  State 
or  Territory  of  the  United  States,  and  have  settled  in  said  Territory  of 
Oregon,  and  who  shall  cultivate  and  use  the  same  for  five  consecutive 
years,  or  to  his  heir  or  heirs-at-law,  if  such  there  be,  in  case  of  his  de- 
cease ;  and  to  the  wife  of  every  such  inl^abitant  or  cultivator,  and  to  each 
of  his  children  wlio  may  have  been  removed  to  said  Territory,  or  be  born 
therein,  there  shall  be  granted  one  hundred  and  sixty  acres,  and  to  their 
heirs  respectively,  in  case  of  their  decease. 

That  no  sale,  alienation,  or  contract  of  any  kind  shall  be  valid,  of  such 
lands,  before  the  patent  is  issued  therefor  ;  nor  shall  the  same  be  liable  to 
be  taken  in  execution,  or  bound  by  any  judgment,  mortgage,  or  lien  of 
any  kind,  before  the  patent  is  so  issued  ;  and  all  pretended  alienations  or 
contracts  for  alienating  such  lands,  made  before  the  issuing  of  the  patents, 
shall  be  null  and  void  against  the  settler  himself,  his  wife,  or  widow,  or 
against  his  heirs-at-law,  or  against  purchasers,  after  the  issuing  of  the 
patent. 

Sec.  2.  And  be  if  further  enacted,  That  the  civil  and  criminal  juris- 
diction of  the  supreme  court  and  district  courts  of  the  Territory  of  Iowa 
be,  and  the  same  is  hereby,  extended  over  that  part  of  the  Indian  territo- 
ries lying  west  of  the  present  limits  of  the  said  Territory  of  Iowa,  and 
south  of  the  forty-ninth  degree  of  north  latitude,  and  west  of  the  Rocky 
Mountains,  and  north  of  the  boundary-line  between  the  United  States  and 
the  republic  of  Texas,  not  included  within  the  limits  of  any  State;  and, 

also,  over  the  Indian  territories,  comprising  the  Rocky  Mountains  and  the 
3 


26 


Rep.  No.  308. 


country  between  them  and  the  Pacific  ocean,  south  of  fifty  four  de- 
grees and  forty  minutes  of  north  latitude,  and  north  of  the  forty - 
second  degree  of  north  latitude;  and  justices  of  the  peaco  maybe  ap- 
pointed for  the  said  Territory,  in  the  same  manner,  and  with  the  same  pow- 
ers, as  now  provided  by  law  in  relation  to  the  Territory  of  Iowa :  Pro- 
vided^ That  any  subject  of  the  Government  of  Great  Britain,  who  shall 
have  been  arrested  under  the  provisions  of  this  act  for  any  crime  alleged 
to  have  been  committed  within  the  territory  westward  of  the  Stony  or 
Rocky  Mountains,  while  the  same  remains  free  and  open  to  the  vessels, 
citizens,  and  subjects  of  the  United  States  and  of  Great  Britain,  pursuant 
to  stipulations  between  the  two  powers,  shall  be  delivered  up,  on  proof  of 
his  being  such  British  subject,  to  the  nearest  or  most  convenient  author- 
ities having  cognizance  of  such  offence  by  the  laws  of  Great  Britain,  for 
the  purpose  of  being  prosecuted  and  tried  according  to  such  laws. 

Sec.  3.  And  be  it  further  enacted,  That  one  associate  judge  of  the  su- 
preme court  of  the  Territory  of  Iowa,  in  addition  to  the  number  now  au- 
thorized by  law,  may,  in  the  discretion  of  the  President,  be  appointed,  to 
hold  his  office  by  the  same  tenure  and  for  the  same  time,  receive  the  same 
compensation,  and  possess  all  the  powers  and  authority  conferred  by  law 
upon  the  associate  judges  of  the  said  Territory;  and  one  judicial  district 
shall  be  organized  by  the  said  supreme  court,  in  addition  to  the  existing 
number,  in  reference  to  the  jurisdiction  conferred  by  this  act;  and  a  dis- 
trict court  shall  be  held  in  the  said  district  by  the  judge  of  the  supreme 
court,  at  such  times  and  places  as  the  said  court  shall  direct ;  and  the  said 
district  court  shall  possess,  all  the  powers  and  authority  vested  in  the  pres- 
ent district  courts  of  the  said  Territory,  and  may,  in  like  manner,  ap- 
point its  own  clerk. 

Sec.  4.  And  be  it  further  enacted,  That  any  justice  of  the  peace,  ap- 
pointed in  and  for  the  Territories  described  in  the  second  section  of  this 
act,  shall  have  power  to  cause  all  offenders  against  the  laws  of  the  United 
States  to  be  arrested  by  such  persons  as  they  shall  appoint  for  that  pur- 
pose, and  to  commit  such  offenders  to  safe  custody  for  trial,  in  the  same 
cases  and  in  the  manner  provided  by  law  in  relation  to  the  Territory  of 
Iowa,  and  to  cause  the  offenders  so  committed  to  be  conveyed  to  the  place 
appointed  for  the  holding  of  a  district  court  for  the  said  Territory  of  Iowa, 
nearest  and  most  convenient  to  the  place  of  such  commitment,  there  to  be 
detained  for  trial,  by  such  persons  as  shall  *be  authorized  for  that  purpose 
by  any  judge  of  the  supreme  court,  or  any  justice  of  the  peace  of  the  said 
Territory;  or  where  such  offenders  are  British  subjects,  to  cause  them 


I 
I 


Rep.  No.  308  27 

to  be  delivered  to  the  nearest  or  most  convenient  British  authorities   as 

and  detention  shall  be  pa,d  in  the  same  manner  as  provided  by  law  in 
respect  to  the  fees  of  the  marshal  of  the  said  Territory 

Sec.  5.  l„rf  ««  i,  /«„/„,  ,„„„,,,y_  ^hat  the  sum  of  one  hundred 
thousand  dollars  be  appropriated,  out  of  any  money  in  the  treasZ  ,?„' 
otherwise  appropriated,  to  carry  into  effect  the  provis  ons  of  this  act 


